Syed Irshad Raza v Krishna Chandra Sen Gupta
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE LLOYD |
| Judgment Date | 13 June 2007 |
| Neutral Citation | [2007] EWCA Civ 653 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 13 June 2007 |
| Docket Number | B2/2006/1263 |
[2007] EWCA Civ 653
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
CHANCERY DIVISION
(MR JUSTICE WARREN)
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London, WC2
Lord Justice Lloyd
B2/2006/1263
The Applicant appeared on his own behalf
MR STEPHEN KING appeared on behalf of the Respondent on a noting brief
J U D G M E N T
This is the oral renewal of an application which was considered by Waller LJ on paper on 4th May 2007 and was dismissed. Quite what the application is is not immediately apparent from the papers because it has a slightly complicated history.
The history essentially is this. The claimant in the proceedings is Mr Sen Gupta, who is the widower of his late wife, and the claim is brought under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. That application came on for hearing, eventually, before His Honour Judge Cowell on 31st March 2006. He heard the case for a full day. He gave a judgment at the end of the day which was evidently, from the terms of his transcript, quite late on in the day. He was satisfied that the provision made for the claimant by the will of £30,000 did not make reasonable financial provision for the claimant in the terms of the 1975 Act, particularly having regard to the fact that under that Act in relation to a claim by a husband or wife the court has to have regard to the provision which the applicant might reasonably have expected to receive if the marriage had been terminated by divorce rather than by death, so that the provision was by no means limited to maintenance needs.
The judge, as I say, was satisfied that reasonable provision had not been made. The judge was not altogether certain as to the size of the estate because, as he said (paragraph 9 of his judgment), he had no evidence from the defendant, who is the appellant before me and who was the executor, as to the assets of the estate. The only evidence came from the claimant. There were various issues about the beneficial interests in particular properties. The judge came to the conclusion, accepting the submissions which he did more or less referentially to written submissions put forward by Miss Angus of counsel for the claimant, that the reasonable provision that should be made was £460,000, of which part would come from an account that had been held with the Halifax Plc and the balance would come from the proceeds of sale of a house called 58 Highfield Avenue.
The defendant, who is the executor and says (and I do not question this) he is also a beneficiary, sought permission to appeal against that. His appellant's notice was issued and served by solicitors on his behalf and set out seven grounds of appeal in section 7 of the appellant's notice.
A number of steps were taken during the time that the appeal was pending, including the granting of a stay at one point by Silber J on 27th or 28th April. Why an order was made by that judge at all in the Queen's Bench Division on an appeal from an order of this kind is unclear, but at any rate that order was made. On 23rd May Warren J heard an application by the claimant respondent. Upon hearing counsel for both sides, he ordered that the stay be lifted and made various consequential orders. That order of 23rd May was then challenged by Mr Raza, the defendant and the appellant before me, by an appellant's notice served on his behalf by his solicitors, filed on 6th June, by which he sought the restoration of the stay.
Now that stay when originally granted by Silber J had been of course only pending the appeal against Judge Cowell's order. That appeal eventually came on before Warren J on 31st July 2006. He considered the application for permission to appeal....
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