Baljit Singh Bhandal v His Majesty's Revenue & Customs & Anor

A judgment or order will be set aside for fraud only where conscious and deliberate dishonesty was material to the decision. Materiality requires the dishonesty to have been an operative cause of the outcome. The claimant bears the civil burden of proving the fraud.

The absence of an entry in a magistrates’ court register is important evidence, but is not necessarily conclusive of non-issuance. The court must examine the actual record-keeping practice at the relevant time.

A later fraud challenge may itself be an abuse of process where the claimant deliberately decided not to investigate or pursue a suspected fraud in earlier proceedings and later sought to reverse that choice.

The claimant sought to set aside orders made in earlier Chancery and Administrative Court proceedings, alleging that an arrest warrant and supporting information had been forged. The earlier proceedings included a claim for statutory compensation under section 89 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which had been dismissed by Collins J, and Chancery proceedings which had been stayed and later struck out as an abuse of process by Judge Jarman.

The central issue was whether the warrant had been issued by Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court on 18 July 2001. The claimant also alleged that the earlier orders had been procured by fraud and should therefore be set aside.

1. Forgery case dismissed. The claimant failed to prove that the arrest warrant or information was forged. The court found that the warrant had been issued at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court on 18 July 2001, that the magistrate’s signatures were genuine, and that the reference to Staines Magistrates’ Court was a drafting error.
2. The absence of the warrant from the available court register was equivocal. The court’s actual record-keeping practice, including the maintenance of a separate warrant book, was more relevant than an abstract assessment of the statutory requirements. The available records did not demonstrate that the warrant had not been issued.
3. The applicable standard was the balance of probabilities. The seriousness of the allegations affected the inherent probabilities and the cogency required, but did not create a higher civil standard.
4. Under Royal Bank of Scotland Plc v Highland Financial Partners LP, a claim to set aside a judgment for fraud requires conscious and deliberate dishonesty which was material to the judgment. Materiality means that the dishonesty was an operative cause of the decision and would have entirely changed the way the original court approached the case.
5. Had the forgery case succeeded, the court would have regarded the proceedings as an abuse of process. The claimant had deliberately chosen to pursue the statutory compensation proceedings despite knowing of material suggesting that the warrant was invalid, and later attempted to reverse that choice after losing.
6. The claims were therefore dismissed. The court would hear the parties further on consequential matters, including the order to be made.