Kailash Lawyers Pty Ltd v Patial

Note: The Court may vary or set aside a judgment or order to remedy minor typographical or grammatical errors (r 24.04(g) Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2) (General Federal Law) Rules 2025 (Cth)), or to record a variation to the order pursuant to r 24.04 Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2) (General Federal Law) Rules 2025 (Cth).

1. Before me today is an Application in a Proceeding filed by Mr Patial on 6 June 2025, which was accepted for filing on 11 June 2025.
2. In support of that application, Mr Patial relies on three affidavits which have been identified by him, the first being an affidavit accepted for filing on 11 June 2025, the second being an affidavit accepted for filing on 11 July 2025, and the third being an affidavit filed on 4 September 2025. Mr Patial was given today the opportunity of making oral submissions to the Court.
3. The Notice of Filing and Hearing, which appears on the front of the Application in a Proceeding - which is issued by the Court - lists the application for "Hearing of Interlocutory Application" on 5 September 2025 at 10.15 am.
4. I have read the three affidavits which Mr Patial relies upon, and I have heard his submissions.
5. The respondent to the Application in a Proceeding, Kailash Lawyers Proprietary Limited, has also had the opportunity of addressing the Court in respect of the relief sought in the application in a proceeding.
6. This application was filed after the Court heard the Creditor's Petition, which was filed on 8 November 2024 and after the Court heard the interim application which was filed by Mr Patial on 11 April 2025. Those matters being heard by the Court on 26 May 2025[1], at which time directions were made for the filing of submissions in relation to those two applications and judgment being reserved thereafter after the filing of submissions.
7. The Application in a Proceeding which is listed for hearing before me today does not raise substantively any new matters, but seeks to rehash the matters which were addressed by the Court previously in respect of the application in a proceeding filed by Mr Patial in March this year, which was also dealt with on the last occasion the matter was before me, when I provided brief oral reasons in relation to that application.
8. This application also seeks to raise very similar issues, if not substantively the same issues as were raised by Mr Patial in his interim application filed in April 2025 and also in his grounds of objection to the Creditor's Petition. Mr Patial seeks an order that I refer for investigation of Mr Pall and Mr Sareen pursuant to rule 19.01 of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2) (General Federal Law) Rules 2021 (Cth). The application also seeks orders that I refer the matter to the New South Wales Police and the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner.
9. In relation to the application to refer the matters to the New South Wales Police and the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner, the Court declines to do so.
10. If Mr Patial has a complaint to make about the conduct of Mr Pall and Mr Sareen in relation to the matters that he raises in his application in a proceeding, he can freely make that complaint himself to the New South Wales Police and/or the Legal Services Commissioner. There is no need for the matters to be referred, and Mr Patial is an individual who can make appropriate complaints to those bodies.
11. In relation to the application that the matter be referred for investigation to the registrar, the power to do so is a discretionary power, and it does not arise in respect of matters that are raised in these proceedings, being the Creditor's Petition proceedings.
12. I am not satisfied having regard to the evidence that I have read that any referral for investigation to a registrar ought to be made pursuant to rule 19.01.
13. The relief that is sought in paragraph 2 of the Application in a Proceeding being the referral to a registrar for costs review and assessment, is an application that seeks to go behind the judgment debt that the Bankruptcy Notice is based upon. Those matters, if at all appropriate ought to have been raised at a much earlier time and, indeed, before the act of bankruptcy occurred.
14. I note that Mr Patial has already appealed the orders of Judge Humphreys unsuccessfully. He has already appealed the costs orders in the commission unsuccessfully, and he has had over 20 published decisions in relation to the original unfair dismissal claim and the matters that arose as a result of that. He has on foot other proceedings in the Federal Court and indeed now again in the District Court having commenced those District Court proceedings after the matter was last before this Court. The relief sought is a matter which the Court by and large was aware of at the time of hearing the Creditor's Petition.
15. The application to refer to the registrar to conduct a full and independent assessment of the schedule of costs and invoices relied upon in the Creditor's Petition is not an appropriate application to be made. First of all, the Creditor's Petition itself is not based upon any invoices. It is based upon the Bankruptcy Notice and the act of bankruptcy which Kailash Lawyers asserts that Mr Patial had engaged in.
16. The relief sought in paragraph 3 of the Application in a Proceeding being the stay of proceedings must fall away because I decline to make the orders sought in paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Application in a Proceeding.
17. The relief sought in paragraph 4 is a dismissal of the Creditor's Petition. Those matters which are raised in paragraph 4 have already been raised in the objections to the Creditor's Petition and are already matters that the Court has considered when hearing the Creditor's Petition and the objections thereto.
18. The relief which is sought in paragraph 5 being that this application be listed for urgent hearing is of no consequence because the Court is hearing the application today. The Court does not consider that there any further orders as may be necessary to give effect to the orders sought in paragraphs 1 through to 5 of the Application in a Proceeding which should be made, which is the relief which is sought in paragraph 6 of the Application in a Proceeding.
19. Next I wish to say something about Mr Patial's criticism of the Court in not answering emails which were sent to the Court and somehow the Court, by virtue of not answering those emails, causing difficulty to Mr Patial in being able to run his Application in a Proceeding and having a fair hearing in relation to that. As I have already indicated, the Notice of Filing and Hearing, which the Court understands is provided at the time that the document is accepted for filing, notes the hearing of the interlocutory application being listed at 10.15 am on 5 September 2025.
20. Correspondence by a party to a presiding judicial officer and/or his or her chambers, which is not with the other side's consent, is, as a matter of course, not automatically considered by that judicial officer. These matters should be clearly apparent to somebody who has legal training and who has previously practised as a lawyer in the state of New South Wales.
21. Applications to the Court should be made in an appropriate manner, and the Court will make determinations in open court as opposed to in chambers, where the parties do not consent to matters being dealt with on the papers, and where unilateral applications are made without notice to the other side and without the other side's consent being first obtained for such an application to be made. Correspondence sent to chambers and/or a judicial officer without consent of the other side should never be entered into. It is completely inappropriate, and that in itself causes the Court to have significant concerns about the approach taken by the applicant in these proceedings.
22. The verbal application that was made for a declaration during the submissions which were made by Mr Patial today is also dismissed. There is no basis for the declaration that is sought. The affidavits which have been filed by Mr Patial and relied upon in his Application in a Proceeding contain mostly submissions and contain very little factual assertion.
23. First of all, turning to the affidavit filed on 6 September 2025, and addressing each of the submissions that have been made in that affidavit:

(a) At paragraph 6 through to 9, Mr Patial makes complaint about the way that the matter proceeded before the Court on 26 May 2025. Those are matters which, if they are to be raised, may appropriately be raised in any appeal in relation to these proceedings, being complaints by Mr Patial about the way that the proceedings were conducted on 26 May 2025.

(b) Paragraph 10 contains a bare assertion and does not provide any evidence in support of that assertion.

(c) Paragraphs 11 through to 12 complain about the form of affidavit that was filed. This Court is not concerned about form, but rather, about the substance of what is contained in the document that has been filed. Indeed, it is a little bit, to use the colloquial, rich, for Mr Patial to be complaining about the applicant's lack of compliance with Court procedure and the rules in circumstances where Mr Patial himself keeps filing application after application and affidavit after affidavit without any leave for such applications or affidavits to be filed.

(d) The matters which are contained in paragraphs 13 and 14 are once again bare assertions and submissions.

(e) Paragraphs 15 through to 17 are once again bare assertions and seek to raise again the matters which were the subject of the objections to the Creditor's Petition, the Creditor's Petition itself and the applications which the Court heard on 26 May 2025.

(f) The matters which are referred to in paragraph 18 and 19 of the affidavit seek to raise issues which attack the costs orders made in the Fair Work Commission. I am not satisfied that, on the basis of that material, there is any basis whatsoever for this Court to go behind the judgment debt in respect of which the Bankruptcy Notice was issued.

(g) Paragraphs 20 and 21, 22, 23 of the affidavit attack Mr Pall's affidavit, the veracity of what is said in that affidavit, and seek to make submissions in relation to the evidence that is contained in those affidavits. Those matters should probably have been raised previously, in particular, if appropriate, when the Court heard the Creditor's Petition and the interlocutory applications in May this year.

(h) The matters going to the improper execution of the Creditor's Petition at paragraphs 24 and 25 of that affidavit are matters which have previously been raised by Mr Patial in objection to the Creditor's Petition.

(i) The matters at paragraphs 26 through to 33 of the affidavit, which attack the affidavit of service and the veracity of what is contained in the affidavit of service of Mr Sareen, filed on 8 November 2024, are once again bare assertions and submissions which are not relevant to any of the matters which the Court needed to consider in terms of the Creditor's Petition. And on their own, and again, together with everything else that is contained in that affidavit, form no basis for the Court to consider going behind the judgment which forms the basis of the Bankruptcy Notice.

(j) The material under the heading Coincidence and Tendency Evidence, which appears between paragraphs 33 and 34, the coincidence and tendency evidence was relied upon before me in the Creditor's Petition hearing on 26 May 2025 and was not objected to by Mr Patial on that occasion.

(k) Paragraph 37 simply restates the orders that were made by a registrar in proceedings which have completed, bearing file number SYG1123/2024, being proceedings in relation to an earlier Creditor's Petition which was dismissed. The earlier creditors' petition is something that the Court was aware of at the time that it heard the Creditor's Petition in May 2025.

(l) The matters which go to power which are referred to at paragraphs 39 to 44 is additional evidence in respect of the service of some documents in 2024 in relation to those earlier proceedings SYG 1123/2024. Once again these matters, if relevant, should have been raised at the hearing on 26 May 2025.

(m) Likewise in relation to what is contained in paragraphs 45 through to 53 of Mr Patial's affidavit.

(n) The matters at paragraph 54 are simply submissions, and not evidence of any fact or assertion of any fact.

(o) The material at paragraphs 55 through to 64 of the affidavit of Mr Patial make submissions in relation to an affidavit of Mr Sureen which was filed on 24 March 2025. Those matters seek to attack the evidence which the Court heard on 26 May 2025.

(p) The material at paragraphs 65 and 66 of the affidavit, invoices issued to a third party, Koala Investment Property Proprietary Limited, is material which seems on its face may have been relevant to an application to go behind the judgment of the original costs order of the Commission. As I've already said those applications or the costs order made by the Commission, and afterwards the orders made by Judge Humphreys, have already been the subject of appeals which have been dismissed.

(q) The material at paragraphs 67 to 69 are submissions without factual basis, and if anything seem to attack the integrity of Mr Sureen and Mr Pall in relation to their professional obligations, and in relation to their conduct as officers of the Court. Those matters are, on their face, scandalous and should not have been included in that affidavit.

(r) The matters referred to in paragraph 70 to 74 of Mr Patial's affidavit seek to go behind the costs judgment, the original judgment of the Fair Work Commission in relation to the award of costs of the unfair dismissal proceedings before the Commission. As I've already indicated, they have been the subject of an appeal, as has Judge Humphreys' judgment. And indeed, it seems that Mr Patial has on foot various proceedings seeking judicial review of the Fair Work Commission's orders presently before the Federal Court.

(s) Paragraphs 75 and 76 of the affidavit are matters of submission going to the costs order of the commission, and paragraph 77 simply states the orders which Mr Patial is seeking, which are not appropriate matters to be contained in an affidavit, because they are not assertions of fact.

1. The affidavit of 11 July 2025 likewise contains material which is not relevant and by way of submission, as opposed to any factual assertions. There is nothing in that affidavit that supports the making of the orders which are sought in the Application in a Proceeding, that is, there are no facts in that affidavit which might warrant the Court making the orders sought in the Application in a Proceeding. The Court repeats the comments just made in relation to similar material contained in the affidavit accepted for filing on 11 June 2025.
2. Lastly, the affidavit accepted for filing on 4 September 2025, complains and criticises this Court, and this judicial officer, for failing to reply to unilateral correspondence sent to the Court.
3. It then sets out again the claims which form the part of proceedings which Mr Patial presently has on foot in the Federal Court of Australia, as well as the new proceedings which he has commenced since the matters were last before me in May 2025, those new proceedings being commenced in the District Court of New South Wales by way of a statement of claim filed on 1 September 2025. Looking at that statement of claim, the Court notes that most of those matters, if not all of those matters, raise the same complaint that had previously been raised by Mr Patial in the Supreme Court proceedings, which were commenced 2 August 2024, and the District Court proceedings, which were commenced on 5 August 2024, both of which have since been transferred to the Federal Court of Australia.
4. The Court has already had an exchange with Mr Patial about the matters which he has deposed to in paragraph 10 of his affidavit, in particular the matters which are contained in subparagraph (iii) of 10(b). Those three proceedings bearing file numbers NSD1/2025, NSD129/2025 and NSD39/2025 are all proceedings which the Court was aware of, and which Mr Patial had addressed the Court in respect of when the Court heard the Creditor's Petition and the interim applications on 26 May 2025.
5. The fact that those proceedings have advanced somewhat once again does not ground any basis for the relief which is sought in the Application in a Proceeding filed on 11 June 2025.
6. The oral submissions which Mr Patial has made today, go beyond addressing the Court in relation to the relief which is sought in the Application in a Proceeding and seek to address the matters which the Court was is reserved in respect of, being the applications that the Court heard on 26 May 2025.
7. So that there is no confusion, no application has been made by Mr Patial to reopen the proceedings which were reserved following the closing of submissions in which evidence was heard on 26 May 2025. That is, no application has been made to lead further evidence in those proceedings, and the affidavits which have been filed in support of the Application in a Proceeding which the Court is hearing today have not been considered nor read by the Court in respect of the matters which were listed for hearing and heard on 26 May 2025.

I certify that the preceding thirty (30) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment of Judge Obradovic.

[1] Together with a number of interlocutory applications. See Kailash Lawyers Pty Ltd v Patial [2025] FedCFamC2G 1432.