Chauhan & Hora

In *Chauhan & Hora*, Ms Chauhan (the Applicant Mother) filed an application seeking to dismiss final parenting and property consent orders made on 25 August 2020. Mr Hora (the Respondent Father) sought dismissal of the Mother's application and an order for costs. Judge McNab presided over the matter.

The court was required to determine whether the Mother's application was properly before the court and, if so, its merits. Specifically, the court considered whether the application was in the correct form, whether the Mother had provided sufficient material to support her claims of duress and illness at the time the consent orders were made, and whether the application had been duly prosecuted.

Judge McNab found the Mother's application to be incompetent and in the wrong form, as it sought dismissal of consent orders rather than setting them aside under Rule 16.05 of the Rules. The court noted that the matter was finalised by the consent orders and should have been commenced by an initiating application. Furthermore, the Mother had failed to file proper supporting material beyond a brief affidavit alleging duress and illness, and had not appeared at previous hearings. The court agreed with the Registrar's earlier finding that the application was devoid of merit and that the Mother had failed to prosecute her case.

Consequently, the court ordered that the Applicant Mother pay the Respondent Father's costs for the hearings on 11 May 2021 and 15 June 2021, fixed at $6058.50. All other extant applications were dismissed.