Mohan v Mohan

We are very much indebted to Mr Harrison and equally to his junior, Ms Ozwell, who appear pro bono for Svetlana Mohan (who I will refer to as “the wife” hereafter) seeking to enforce lump sum orders against her former husband, Anu Mohan (who I will refer to simply as “the husband”).

For the purposes of today it is not necessary to say more of the proceedings other than that, on 27 July 201, HHJ Cryan decided against Mr Harrison that information and documents disclosed by the husband on 30 August 2011 in asserted compliance with the order of 22 June 2011 could not be relied upon by the wife in her summons under the Judgment Act, as a result of which Mr Harrison accepted that the application was doomed to failure and he sought permission to withdraw it.

That left only the application for enforcement that was issued on 21 April 2011 and which had resulted in the order of 22 June to which I have already referred. Nevertheless HHJ Cryan went on to make orders against the husband which required him, by a given date, to disclose information and documentation across a wide field, all relating to his financial position. It also required him to attend in person at a hearing on a date to be fixed in October 2012 and, within seven days or at least seven days prior thereto, to serve on the wife's solicitors statements of truth as to his financial affairs.

So HHJ Cryan was making those orders against the husband within the context of a committal application which had been issued on 27 September 2011 to enforce disclosure ordered on 22 June 2011. The foundation of the committal order application was the contention that the disclosure of the 13 August 2011 was not adequate or proper compliance and accordingly put the husband into breach. So, assuming that the committal order application had proceeded on the date in October, it would have been to enforce disclosure within the context of the enforcement order proceedings issued on 21 April.

We have this morning explored with Mr Harrison the procedural history, which is helpfully recorded in his skeleton argument of 16 August, but which left room for further elaboration, and we have agreed with Mr Harrison that he will expand section C of the appeal bundle to include the additional documents which have emerged during the course of discussion this morning. We have also agreed with Mr Harrison that he will very kindly file a brief supplemental skeleton citing and considering some recent authority of obvious relevance that has emerged over the last six months. Finally, Mr Harrison has very kindly agreed to add a litigation chronology which should cover the period since the order of HHJ Cryan which this application seeks to review.

Not much has been achieved this morning for the simple reason that the issues raised by this application are of general importance and the relevant authorities cited by Mr Harrison are not only many in number but also complex in their inter-relationship and extending across other fields of civil law and also criminal law. So all members of the court felt that it was unsatisfactory and unsafe to proceed to hear and deliver judgment on the application in the absence of the respondent, who has by email explained his unwillingness or his inability to attend.

In the circumstances the only progress that we can make towards determination is to grant the permission application, which was adjourned to an oral hearing with appeal to follow if permission were granted. So at least we can enlarge Mr Harrison's application into a full appeal. We must also ask for the assistance of an advocate to the court to provide another view, which may or may not differ from the submissions of Mr Harrison, but at least it will be another view on an area of difficult and tangled law.

Mr Harrison rightly points out that every day that passes without relief is a day of anxiety to the wife, who is in desperate financial straits. Accordingly I would ask that the processes for the appointment of an advocate to the court be expedited and the appeal be relisted at the earliest practicable date after the instruction of the advocate to the court.

Ideally we would maintain the same constitution as we have all invested a good deal of reading time, but, if that is not possible, at least the general composition of the court must be replicated by the inclusion of one Chancery specialist, one family specialist and one criminal specialist.

So we make only the orders granting permission, seeking the appointment of an advocate to the court and adjourning the appeal. Time estimate, one day.