Grasso v Naik (twenty-one irregular divorces)

I have before me applications by the Queen’s Proctor in relation to the 21 petitions listed in the Schedule annexed to this judgment. In the six cases listed in Part A of the Schedule, the matter has not proceeded as far as decree. In the four cases listed in Part B of the Schedule, decree nisi has been pronounced. In the remaining eleven cases listed in Part C of the Schedule, both decree nisi and decree absolute have been pronounced. Twenty are petitions for divorce, one (Marco Lo Grasso v Surendra Naik, ZC15D03263), is a petition for dissolution of a civil partnership. For present purposes, nothing turns on this difference. It will be noted from the individual case numbers, where the two-digit number indicates the year in which the petition was issued, that the petitions cover the period from 2006 to 2015.

Mr Simon Murray, on behalf of the Queen’s Proctor, submits that in each case the court was deceived by fraud – essentially by the use of false addresses, 73 or 75 West End Road, Southall, Middlesex, UB1 1JQ – into accepting that it had jurisdiction to entertain the petition, with the consequence, he further submits, that each of the decrees, whether nisi or absolute, is void, irrespective of whether one or both of the parties has subsequently remarried or even had a child: see Rapisarda v Colladon; Re 180 Irregular Divorces [2014] EWFC 35, [2015] 1 FLR 597, paras 7, 16, 28, 29(iii), 80-82.

The Queen’s Proctor alleges, and I find as a fact, that the architect of these frauds, as I find them to be, was one Khalik Bhatoo, a former member of the English Bar. At the relevant times members of his family owned properties at 73 and 75 West End Road. By an order I made on 22 March 2017, Mr Bhatoo was joined as a third party to all of the 21 petitions. It is a matter of public record that Mr Bhatoo was convicted on 28 April 2003 before Kingston Magistrates Court of two offences of dishonesty in relation to obtaining housing and council tax benefits and that on 1 October 2006, following an unsuccessful appeal from the decision of the Tribunal, he was disbarred, after a Disciplinary Tribunal of the Council of the Inns of Court on 23 May 2005 had found him guilty of three offences of professional misconduct.

By the order dated 22 March 2017 I gave directions for the filing and service by the Queen’s Proctor of his Plea (see below) and made clear that, failing the filing in any petition by the parties of an Answer, “the rule in Clutterbuck v Clutterbuck and Reynolds (Queen’s Proctor Showing Cause) (1961) 105 SJ 1012 will apply.” The order provided that the parties to the various petitions were to be served by post to the addresses, other than 73 and 75 West and Road, set out in a schedule prepared by the Queen’s Proctor which had been before me at the hearing and which listed all the addresses at which the parties were believed to live or have lived. I should add that the timetable set out in that order was subsequently modified by a further order I made on 11 July 2017.

An annotated version of that schedule, put before me at the final hearing on 10 October 2017 and showing those letters which had been “returned”, demonstrates that in most, but not all, of the petitions a letter, not having been “returned”, had seemingly been received by at least one of the parties. Be that as it may, no Answer has been received from any of the parties to any of these petitions. Apart from Mr Bhatoo (see below) the only responses of any kind from anybody were (i) from solicitors acting for Mohsin Tola (the Petitioner in Mohsin Abdul Majid Tola v Maria Maryline Migeon, FD13D01422), who contacted the Queen’s Proctor after their client had received the Queen’s Proctor’s Plea but did not, in the event, pursue the matter any further, (ii) from Surendra Naik (the Respondent in Marco Lo Grasso v Surendra Naik, ZC15D03263) and (iii) from Asma Bi (the Petitioner in Asma Kausar v Shahraz Riasat, BV15D18675).

Mr Naik attended in person both the directions hearing on 22 March 2017 and the final hearing on 10 October 2017. As I made clear to him at the hearing on 22 March 2017, repeated in a letter sent to him the following day by the Queen’s Proctor, there was no need for him to volunteer any information before he received the Queen’s Proctor’s Plea. In the event, although he attended the final hearing and addressed me briefly, Mr Naik has at no stage sought to file an Answer or any evidence or to mount any other challenge to the Plea.

Mrs Bi has been most helpful, filing a very revealing statement dated 21 September 2017 to which I must return below. Here I merely record that a copy of that statement, redacted to conceal both her and her husband’s addresses, was sent by the Queen’s Proctor to Mr Bhatoo by email on 29 September 2017.

Before proceeding further, it is convenient to set out the Queen’s Proctor’s Plea. It is dated 14 July 2017 and is signed by Mr Murray. It begins as follows:

The facts relied on by the Queen’s Proctor are then set out as follows:

The Plea then concluded with these formal averments:

Ms Thomas has considerable specialist experience in the scientific examination of questioned documents, including the comparison and identification of handwriting. Her report (which expresses her opinions by reference to an eight-point scale, ‘conclusive’, ‘very strong’, ‘strong’, ‘moderately strong’, ‘moderate’, ‘weak’, ‘inconclusive’ and ‘no support’) has two components to which I need to refer.

In relation to what Ms Thomas refers to as “non-signature writing” – that is, writing, other than the signature, on documents filed with the court – her opinion, based on examination of the files in fifteen of these cases, is that:

there is conclusive support for the proposition that Mr Bhatoo’s is the writing on both petitioner and respondent documents in nine cases;

there is strong support for the proposition that Mr Bhatoo’s is the writing on both petitioner and respondent documents in two cases; and

there is moderate support for the proposition that Mr Bhatoo’s is the writing on both petitioner and respondent documents in another case.

In relation to the signatures on documents filed with the court, her opinion, based on examination of the files in these fifteen cases, is that there is moderate support for the proposition that Mr Bhatoo completed signatures of the petitioner in eight cases and of the respondent in two other cases. Otherwise, there is either no support for the proposition that he completed such signatures or her findings are inconclusive. Again, I have no hesitation in accepting that evidence. It suggests that Mr Bhatoo was guilty of forgery.

Mrs Bi’s statement makes a number of assertions. For present purposes what is important is her evidence that, in the course of a telephone conversation with Mr Bhatoo, she informed him of her address (which was not either 73 or 75 West End Road). Examination of the court file shows that her address on the petition was stated to be 73 West End Road. Her statement continues:

Shortly before the hearing, the court received the following three documents:

on 4 October 2017, an undated statement of Sonia Shaikh, a relative of Mrs Bi; attached to that statement is a copy of Mrs Bi’s statement which, according to Ms Shaikh, was given to her by Mrs Bi, but it appears in fact to be a copy of the redacted statement sent by the Queen’s Proctor to Mr Bhatoo;

on 6 October 2017, an undated statement of Mr Bhatoo, referring to what was described as “the statement of Mr Patel of today’s date [sic]”; and

also on 6 October 2017, an unsigned document described as “Skeleton Arguements [sic] by a former lawyer working at West End Road Office” who is not identified in the document but is, I assume, the Mr Patel referred to in Mr Bhatoo’s statement.

It is common ground between Mrs Bi and her relative, Ms Shaikh, that both played some part in connection with Mrs Bi’s divorce petition, though there is much conflict between the two accounts. Ms Shakh’s statement includes the assertion “There has been no third party involved in this matter neither the alleged person of Khalick Bhatoo [sic].” This assertion is demonstrably untrue, for the relevant court file contains a copy of a cheque for the court fee of £410 drawn on an account in the name of Mr Bhatoo in relation to which, in the opinion of Ms Thomas, there is conclusive support for the proposition that the cheque was written out by Mr Bhatoo. Interestingly, Ms Shaikh’s statement also includes the assertion that “We use the address in Southall because she does not want her former husband to know her where about [sic].” Even if this is true (and it conflicts starkly with Mrs Bi’s account) it cannot avail. There are other processes available to those who legitimately wish to conceal their address from the respondent and giving a false address on the face of the petition is not one of them. Even if the motivation for this was as Ms Shaikh asserts, the fact is that the petition told a lie.

Mr Bhatoo in his statement merely says “I confirm that I have read the statement of Mr Patel of today’s date and concur with the contents therein.” So it is to the latter document that I turn.

Mr Patel’s so-called Skeleton Arguement is a curious document, containing much bluster and irrelevance which there is no need for me to explore. The importance of the document is as much for what it does not say as for what it does, in circumstances where, as the document itself makes clear, the author has read and is seeking to respond to the Queen’s Proctor’s Plea. The document does not even attempt to engage in any detailed way with the expert evidence of Ms Thomas. Of critical importance, the document does not seek to assert that any of the relevant petitioners and respondents in fact lived at either 73 or 75 West End Road or to controvert the Queen’s Proctor’s case that none of them ever did. On the contrary, the assertion is repeatedly made in effect that this is neither here nor there:

In my judgment, Mr Murray has proved his case in relation to each of these twenty-one petitions. In each case, as he submits, the underlying proceedings were tainted by deception in relation to the address of either the petitioner or the respondent, and the decrees, where decrees have been granted, were obtained by deception. Accordingly, I made an order at the conclusion of the final hearing on 10 October 2017 that:

the petitions listed in Part A of the Schedule are dismissed;

in relation to the petitions listed in Part B of the Schedule, all decrees nisi and certificates are set aside and the petitions are dismissed;

in relation to the petitions listed in Part C of the Schedule, all decrees absolute, decrees nisi and certificates are set aside and the petitions are dismissed.

That order also provided, pursuant to section 8 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, that Mr Bhatoo pay the Queen’s Proctor’s costs in all the petitions on the indemnity basis. I directed that there be a summary assessment, which I reserved to the President of the Family Division. I gave the following directions:

The Queen's Proctor was to file and serve on Mr Bhatoo a statement of costs for summary assessment by 22 October 2017.

Mr Bhatoo might file and serve any objections relating to any items in the summary statement no later than 4pm on 13 November 2017.

The Queen’s Proctor’s costs would be summarily assessed without a hearing and the Queen’s Proctor and Mr Bhatoo notified of the outcome by order.

The costs are to be paid within 21days of service of the order.

I should add that at the beginning of the final hearing I had made a direction in accordance with Section 1(4) of the Judicial Proceedings (Regulation of Reports) Act 1926 that the matters in these proceedings may be reported: see Rapisarda v Colladon [2014] EWFC 1406, [2015] 1 FLR 584, paras 41-43.

The Schedule