Uddin v Choudhury & Ors

Judgment

Lord Justice Mummery:

This is a renewed application for permission to appeal and for an extension of time for bringing an appeal. The application is made by Mr Burhan Uddin in person and the decision which he wishes to appeal was one reached by HHJ Collender QC on 20 March 2009 in the Central London County Court. The judge dismissed the claims for recovery of gifts which had been made in relation to the marriage of Mr Uddin’s son, Mohammed, to Miss Nazim Choudhury. The judge not only dismissed that claim, he also gave judgment on a counterclaim made by Miss Choudhury (who I will refer to as “the bride”) for payments of dowry, which she said had been agreed prior to the marriage, but had not been paid. The judge refused to grant Mr Uddin permission to appeal, as did Sir Richard Buxton, who was given the papers in this case in July, to give his ruling on whether permission should be granted. He refused permission, saying that the appeal had no reasonable prospect of success. He stated his reasons for that conclusion. As is his right, Mr Uddin now asks for the application to be reconsidered in court after oral argument. He has helpfully prepared some written arguments, which were submitted earlier this year on 7 May 2009. This morning he has, with some assistance, referred me to various documents in the papers and made his comments on why he says he has reasonable grounds for appealing from the decision of HHJ Collender.

To understand the points he is making I have to outline the history of this dispute. As the judge said, it is a very sad dispute between two families, and it is a great pity that the attempts that were made to settle the differences were not successful. It went to court. There is obviously a lot of ill feeling about what has happened. All the people involved in the dispute are from families originating in Bangladesh and they are all Muslim. This unfortunate dispute arises out of an arranged marriage which failed. The marriage was arranged between the two families, but Mohammed Uddin (whom I will call “the groom”) was to be married to the bride. An Islamic ceremony took place in Battersea Town Hall on 17 August 2003, and that is what is referred to as nikah. It was originally intended that it should be followed by a civil ceremony, but that never took place. Unfortunately, for reasons which are disputed, the marriage never worked, and the outcome was that, at the beginning of December 2004, the Islamic Sharia council issued a decre