Mohinder Singh v Secretary, Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations

[2011] HCASL 170

MOHINDER SINGH
v
SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION,
EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS
[2011] HCASL 170
M66/2011

1. This is an application for special leave to appeal from orders of Gordon J in the Federal Court of Australia made on 18 July 2011.  Those orders were a dismissal with costs of a purported appeal by the applicant from a decision of the Federal Magistrates Court (Burchardt FM).  Burchardt FM had dismissed an application for review of a sequestration order made on 28 February 2008 by Registrar Burns in the Federal Magistrates Court.

2. In 1999 the County Court of Victoria ruled that certain money be paid to the applicant by his accident compensation insurer.  By a decision of 4 November 1999, a delegate of the respondent ("Centrelink") then recovered that money, being social security payments, directly from the insurer.  The applicant then sought a review of Centrelink's decision in the Federal Court of Australia, but failed.  An application for special leave to appeal to this Court was dismissed.  Centrelink then decided it had no jurisdiction to review its decision of 4 November 1999.  The Social Security Appeals Tribunal declined to overturn Centrelink's decision.  The applicant then appealed to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal ("the Tribunal"), which decided that the application was obviously untenable and utterly hopeless:  it dismissed the application as frivolous and vexatious.  It also directed the applicant not to make, without the leave of the Tribunal, any further application in relation to the recovery of sickness allowance, disability support pension or wife pension paid between 1991 and 1999.  The applicant appealed from that decision to the Federal Court of Australia.  Weinberg J dismissed the appeal save that he varied the Tribunal's order in a minor respect.  The applicant then appealed to the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia, which dismissed the appeal with costs.  On 15 May 2008 this Court dismissed an application for special leave to appeal from the orders of the Full Court.  The Federal Court of Australia (Goldberg J) then dismissed the applicant's application for an annulment of the sequestration order and for the orders of Weinberg J to be set aside.  An appeal by the applicant to the Full Federal Court against those orders was then dismissed.  An application for special leave to appeal to this Court was dismissed. 

3. The draft Notice of Appeal filed in support of the applicant's application for special leave to appeal against the orders of Gordon J contends that the sequestration order made by Registrar Burns is an interlocutory order, and that the applicant was not obliged to obtain leave from the Federal Court of Australia to review it even though the application for review was filed out of time.  Neither contention has any prospect of success.  In any event, the proceedings are an abuse of process because they seek to re-litigate questions already decided.   

4. The application is dismissed.

5. Pursuant to r 41.10.5 we direct the Registrar to draw up, sign and seal an order dismissing the application.

J.D. Heydon
26 October 2011 V.M. Bell