Salekipour & Anor v Parmar & Anor

A county court is a statutory court and has no inherent jurisdiction to rescind its own final judgment for fraud. Section 23(g) of the County Courts Act 1984 confers equitable jurisdiction over original proceedings for relief against fraud within the county court limit; it does not create a collateral mechanism for setting aside an earlier county court judgment. Section 38 does not independently confer jurisdiction, and section 70 reinforces that conclusion.

Where a judgment depends materially on witness credibility, credible evidence that a witness was suborned may create a real danger that the result was affected. If jurisdiction existed, a fresh fraud action could be appropriate. The appeal nevertheless failed because the county court lacked jurisdiction.

The claimants appealed from HHJ Faber’s decision in the Central London County Court. Their original county court claim against the defendants had been dismissed, with judgment entered on the counterclaim.

The claimants later commenced fresh proceedings seeking rescission of that judgment and a new trial. They relied on a witness statement suggesting that a material witness had been instructed to give false evidence. A district judge struck out the claim as an abuse of process. HHJ Faber upheld that order because the county court lacked jurisdiction to rescind its own judgment, although she considered the alleged subornation materially relevant.

The appeal concerned the county court’s jurisdiction and, if jurisdiction existed, the proper procedure, adequacy of the pleadings and materiality of the new evidence.

1. Appeal dismissed. The county court had no jurisdiction to entertain proceedings seeking rescission of an earlier county court judgment for alleged perjury and subornation.
2. The county court is a creature of statute and has no inherent jurisdiction. Section 23(g) of the County Courts Act 1984 concerns original proceedings for relief against fraud within the county court limit. It does not provide a mechanism for rescinding a prior judgment. Section 38 concerns remedies and does not itself confer jurisdiction. Section 70, making county court judgments final and conclusive subject to statutory exceptions, reinforces that construction.
3. Stevenson v Garnett did not establish a contrary jurisdiction. It concerned setting aside a fraudulent deed of compromise or release, where the court reviewed the parties’ conduct rather than rescinding its own judgment.
4. Where jurisdiction exists, a fresh action remains an available way to challenge a judgment obtained by fraud, although an appeal is now the more common route. The pleadings were adequate apart from an irrelevant allegation which would have been struck out.
5. The alleged evidence was directly relevant to credibility, harassment and the rent counterclaim, but not to the unreasonable withholding-of-consent claim. Where a judgment rests on witness evidence challenged for fraud, it will rarely be appropriate to dissect the judgment into separate elements. If the new evidence were true, there was a real danger that it affected the outcome on all issues except the withholding-of-consent issue. These observations were unnecessary because the jurisdictional point was decisive.

The appeal was brought from HHJ Faber’s decision in the Central London County Court, which upheld DJ Lightman’s order striking out the rescission proceedings. The High Court dismissed the appeal because the county court lacked jurisdiction.