A FORMER Royal Lancaster Infirmary doctor lied on job application forms, a General Medical Council tribunal has found.

Ashutosh Jain, 38, could be struck off after including incorrect information in applications for two posts on the registrar training programme in both urology and radiology to the East Anglian Deanery in August 2000.

The committee has been adjourned until an unspecified date to decide if Dr Jain's actions represent serious professional misconduct.

Dr Jain is said to have lied in more than 10 parts of his application form for the two posts.

This includes his claim to be the author or co-author of 10 different publications.

One of the discrepancies was in his claim to have worked as a registrar or visiting registrar at the RLI when he, in fact, worked as a senior house officer.

Mr Jain, currently a staff grade urologist at North Devon District Hospital, said he never intended to deliberately mislead anybody.

He told the inquiry he was unable to ring around his previous employers as he was already two days late in returning his form and didn't think anyone would question him about this.

"My belief was that the dates were not important," he said: "I didn't think it would make such a difference but I can understand now that it was wrong."

He denies naming himself as the author of the publications was either false or deliberate, but admits sending an email to the editor of 'Abdominal Surgery' purporting to be from SK Jain, the Delhi based surgeon who actually wrote the articles, asking that his name be added as an author of four of the 10 publications.

Jane Sullivan, for the GMC, said the doctor was: "Not just being reckless or careless.

His intention being, no doubt, to enhance his chances of getting a job."

She added: "There is just too much false information for it all to be put down to carelessness and taken as a whole this information must have been given deliberately with the intention of misleading his employers."

Discrepancies came to light, the tribunal heard, at an interview, when he 'could not remember' aspects of a very rare condition he claimed to have written about.

Linda Parish, specialist recruitment officer for Addenbrooks NHS Trust, became suspicious when she compared the doctor's two applications after she recognised them.

"I put the two applications side by side and where I saw discrepancies I started to ring or write" she said.