Dhillon files legal action against City of Brampton; discredited report still on website 3 years after accuser admitted making false allegations. The Pointer has her letter

Former Brampton councillor Gurpreet Dhillon is asking a judge to order the City of Brampton to take down a 2020 integrity commissioner report that sided with a woman who accused him of sexual assault, an accusation she has since withdrawn. 

Documents obtained by The Pointer show Brampton’s Integrity Commissioner Muneeza Sheikh, who authored the since discredited report, knew in 2024 that the woman had withdrawn all her false accusations and had apologized to Dhillon. 

The documents include the woman’s name, but it is not being published.

In a letter dated September 1, 2023, addressed to Brampton City Council, she wrote: “Dear Members of Brampton City Council, I am writing to request a withdrawal of the sexual misconduct allegations that I made against Gurpreet Singh Dhillon in late 2019 and early 2020 while we both attended a conference in Turkey.” 

The full letter from Gurpreet Dhillon’s accuser to Brampton City Council in September of 2023, admitting she made false allegations and apologizing for the harm she caused him.

Sheikh’s report was used by people opposed to Dhillon, including Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown, who repeatedly attacked Dhillon publicly following the release of the report. Dhillon, following a public campaign that used the report, was defeated in the 2022 municipal election, after council had suspended him on Sheikh’s recommendation.

Following receipt of the accuser’s letter in 2023. Brampton officials refused to take down the report. 

Mayor Brown’s conduct in the entire matter raised red flags from the beginning after he visited the woman face-to-face when she had returned from the Turkey trip and inserted himself into the eventual investigation that was done by Sheikh. 

Dhillon was seen as Brown’s chief rival on council and Sheikh had been hired under Brown’s direction shortly after his election in 2018, despite conflict of interest concerns over their connections to each other. Sheikh had never worked in municipal law before and had never served in any capacity as an integrity commissioner, or similar area. 

In 2022 Brown cancelled an external corruption investigation into allegations of wrongdoing in the awarding of contracts and hiring decisions, including the decision to employ Sheikh. The allegations centred on Brown.

In a Notice of Action claim filed to Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice on September 29, about a month before Dhillon hopes to win back his council seat in the October 26 municipal election, he argues the City continues to defame him every day Sheikh’s report remains publicly visible on its website. 

The legal move is the first step toward filing a lawsuit. Dhillon is only seeking $1 for general damages, plus $50,000 for aggravated damages due to the unwillingness of Brampton officials to cooperate, and the legal costs for the action. The City has not yet filed a notice of intent to defend.

Dhillon has denied the allegations from the beginning and Peel police never interviewed him, after the woman alleged an incident took place in a hotel in Turkey while both were on a City Hall-led trade mission representing Brampton. 

The claim, filed by Dhillon’s lawyer, Eric Gillespie, asks for a permanent mandatory injunction requiring the City to remove the report authored by Brampton’s Integrity Commissioner Muneeza Sheikh, along with “all links to, summaries of and video or other recordings concerning” it, from every website, online portal and meeting archive that the City maintains. Dhillon also wants a court order requiring the City to publish a statement acknowledging that the allegations behind the report were recanted by the complainant.

The Pointer obtained documents that show Sheikh knew in 2024 that the allegations against Dhillon had been withdrawn but she claimed Brampton Council had to retract her discredited report that sided with the accuser and recommended Dhillon be suspended.

“Ms. Sheikh takes this new information regarding the Report very seriously, however she simply does not have the ‘statutory’ authority to expunge the Report based on this letter,” Sheikh’s lawyer wrote to Dhillon’s lawyer on November 11, 2024. She wrote that “Only Council” could take the corrective action.

A month later, Gillespie (Dhillon’s lawyer) wrote to legal counsel at the City of Brampton, notifying its officials that Sheikh made it clear that Brampton council had to expunge the report and that the Municipal Act also makes it clear that the responsibility to remove an integrity commissioner’s report lies with council.

The Pointer obtained confidential email communication that was sent by Dhillon just to members of council in April of this year: "As a member of council you are receiving this notice because you are responsible for the accuracy of the public record" and that "the July 2020 Integrity Commissioner's (IC) report" is "being deliberately weaponized for political purposes".

Despite the communications between the lawyers, which were obtained by The Pointer recently but sent to Brampton officials two years ago, they were never made public. 

On May 6 of this year, Sheikh appeared via video in Brampton Council chambers to address Dhillon’s demands to finally have her report withdrawn. It was the first time she addressed the matter since the accuser’s letter dated September 1, 2023 was sent to Brampton Council. 

After acknowledging how seriously she took the letter in a confidential legal communication to Dhillon’s lawyer in 2024, stating council had the responsibility to expunge her report, Sheikh changed her tune when in front of Brampton council and the public in May. She claimed she had not been able to find the woman in two years and could not verify the authenticity of the letter. 

Dhillon has publicly released confirmation that the accuser’s lawyer has verified the validity of the letter and The Pointer has verified that the woman’s lawyer did indeed validate the letter written by his client in 2023. 

The Pointer was able to find the woman in minutes, locating and verifying her place of work in the GTA.     

Dhillon stated in May that his actions to seek justice have to do with accountability and not personal gain, and that any award left over following his legal costs would be reinvested in Brampton. 

His legal claim is built around the upcoming election. It says the City, which manages the voting process through its Clerk, has continued to publish the report throughout what it calls the “2026 Election Period”, from the day Dhillon filed his nomination on May 28, and that each day the report remains on the City website is a “fresh publication.” 

Gurpreet Dhillon is seeking $1 in general damages, and $50,000 in punitive damages plus costs from The City of Brampton. (The Pointer/Alexis Wright)

The claim confines itself to that period. It says Dhillon is not claiming damages for anything before it, and pleads earlier events only as background to the City’s knowledge, absence of good faith and malice. 

At the centre of the claim is the withdrawal of the allegations by the accuser. 

The Pointer reported in July that Dhillon was prepared to take legal action if the report was not removed.

Dhillon said he asked the City on November 8, 2023 to remove the report and the City refused, and the claim argues the City has therefore known for nearly three years the report rested on false information, which Dhillon argues amounts to malice.

Dhillon argues the report has been relied on by electors and others to question his integrity and fitness for office and the false authenticity of the accuser’s fabricated claims, and that he has had to divert campaign time and money to deal with a matter that damages his reputation. 

Should he fail to be elected in October, the claim says he will have lost the office and its pay and benefits for the 2026-2030 council term. His legal claim calls the City’s conduct “high-handed, malicious and oppressive.” 

Only the City of Brampton is named as a defendant in the claim, and its argument rests on the City’s role as publisher of its own website. 

In 2020 Brampton Integrity Commissioner Muneeza Sheikh found that Gurpreet Dhillon was responsible for his actions, and recommended the harshest sentence possible, which included a 90-day suspension without pay, along with a reprimand. Sheikh appeared before council via video in May of this year claiming she could not verify the letter written by the accuser admitting she made up false allegations against Dhillon. (The Pointer/Alexis Wright)

Sheikh found that Dhillon breached the City’s Code of Conduct rules on harassment and discreditable conduct, relying heavily on an audio recording the accuser claimed she made, which was never shared publicly and never provided to Dhillon’s lawyers in 2020 despite attempts to verify the recording. Sheikh recommended the harshest sanction possible, a 90-day suspension without pay, along with a reprimand and an apology, and said she was displeased that council had no power under legislation to remove him outright. 

Dhillon denied Sheikh’s findings, and filed for judicial review, arguing that Sheikh lacked authority to investigate because a formal complaint had not been filed to her when Mayor Brown called Sheikh to initiate the investigation in late 2019. Dhillon argued he was denied the evidence against him. 

In August 2020, all ten of Gurpreet Dhillon’s council colleagues backed a motion demanding that he resign. The virtual meeting followed the release of the integrity commissioner’s report. Council also unanimously accepted the commissioner’s recommendations. 

Dhillon did not attend the meeting, refused to step down, and responded through his lawyer. He denied the allegations, which had not been proven in court, and he and his lawyers took issue with several procedural aspects of how Sheikh’s report was produced. 

Peel Regional Police confirmed that Turkish authorities conducted a probe of the alleged assault during the trade mission. No police charges were ever pursued.

In June, 2021, a three judge Superior Court panel largely upheld Sheikh’s report on Dhillon, rejecting most of his judicial review application. The court found it was reasonable for Sheikh to start investigating without a formal complaint and that Dhillon was not denied procedural fairness. 

Dhillon maintained the process was unfair and unproven in court, and raised unanswered questions about Brown’s involvement. 

In 2022, Brown used the report to attack Dhillon ahead of that year’s election and claimed the City had paid “hush money” to keep the matter quiet, hours after the City’s solicitor at the time told Brown by email that no such payment was made by the City. Dhillon threatened to sue Brown. 

In October of 2022, Dhillon lost his seat by 227 votes after a public campaign by a community group focused on the allegations. 

Earlier this year Dhillon said that his lawyer was finalizing legal action against the City because officials, including Mayor Brown, kept ignoring his requests to remove Sheikh’s report. He accused the City and Sheikh of playing jurisdictional “ping-pong”, claiming it was the other’s responsibility to remove the report. 

In July, after Sheikh had suddenly raised questions about the validity of the admission by the accuser, Gillespie said he had confirmed with the woman’s lawyer that her letter was properly verified and warned the City to remove the report or face claims. The City said any decision rested with Sheikh. 

The Pointer sent the City Dhillon’s legal notice filed with the court warning of a lawsuit, and requested a statement. The City did not respond. 

The City has 20 days after it was served with the Notice to file a statement of intent to defend. City officials could also remove the report. 
 

Email: [email protected] 

At a time when vital public information is needed by everyone, The Pointer has taken down our paywall on all stories to ensure every resident of Brampton, Mississauga and Niagara has access to the facts. For those who are able, we encourage you to consider a subscription. This will help us report on important public interest issues the community needs to know about now more than ever. You can register for a 30-day free trial HERE. Thereafter, The Pointer will charge $10 a month and you can cancel any time right on the website. Thank you