England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
CIVIL DIVISION
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT
CHANCERY DIVISION
(Mr Justice Blackburne)

		The Royal Courts of Justice The Strand London Friday 1 March 2002

Friday 1st March 2002

1. LORD JUSTICE ROBERT WALKER: This is an application by Mr Ravindar Kumar Marya, who has appeared in person, seeking permission to appeal from an order which Blackburne J made in the Chancery Division on 30 July 2001, dismissing Mr Marya's application for permission to apply for rescission of a bankruptcy order. The bankruptcy order was made in the Kingston-on-Thames County Court as long ago as 18 October 1999.
2. Mr Marya feels strongly that the bankruptcy order ought not to have been made, in particular because he says that there was at the time a counterclaim by him pending, which should have been treated by the Kingston-on-Thames County Court as a sufficient reason for not making a bankruptcy order. In fact the court took the unusual course of making a bankruptcy order but suspending its effect until a hearing, at which the counterclaim failed.
3. The application to Blackburne J was of a very preliminary nature because Mr Marya was and is subject to a restraining order, sometimes known as a Grepe v Loam order (see Grepe v Loam (1887) 37 ChD 168 and also Ebert v Vennvill [2000] Ch 484). That order was made by Mr Kim Lewison QC, sitting as a Deputy Judge of the Chancery Division, on 31 March 2000. On that occasion the deputy judge also dismissed an appeal by Mr Marya from the dismissal in the county court of his application to annul the bankruptcy order. That order was followed by an application by Mr Marya for permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal, and a further application for reinstatement of the application for permission to appeal after it had been refused.
4. Blackburne J said that the application to him was yet another attempt to revisit and relitigate the bankruptcy order. Mr Marya has submitted in his appellant's notice that Blackburne J failed to consider the matter afresh and followed the lead of other judges, including Arden LJ, who considered the matter in this court on 27 March 2001 on one of the applications to reinstate Mr Marya's application for permission to appeal.
5. Mr Marya has tactfully suggested that I may be tempted to follow the same course and has suggested, again tactfully, to me that I must look at the matter afresh. I have tried to look at the matter afresh. I have referred to the transcript of the judgment of Blackburne J and it seems to me that he did (as one would expect) give careful consideration to the application and asked himself whether Mr Marya might (despite all his previous applications to the court) have put forward any new matter that provided a fresh reason for yet a further attempt to upset his bankruptcy. However, having done so, Blackburne J too came to the conclusion that Mr Marya had not raised any new grounds for reopening the matter. That is not perhaps surprising, because these matters have now been before different courts many, many times.
6. Looking at the matter afresh, I can see no ground for interfering with the judicial discretion which Blackburne J exercised. An appeal would be hopeless and I dismiss this application.
ORDER: Application refused