[2025] EWHC 2485 (Ch)

The next question is whether there is any other argument for saying that Iftikhar has been served with the 2019 English Partnership Claim. In fact, Vaqar puts forward two other arguments. One is that he provided the claim form to Iftikhar in October 2019, during a hearing in the county court possession proceedings. What happened was that Vaqar in his oral submissions to the court sought to rely on a copy of the claim that he had just issued (that is, the 2019 English Partnership Claim). Unremarkably, the judge insisted that, before making his submissions based on that document, he first provide a copy to counsel for Iftikhar. As the judge said, “one of the rules we have is openness and fairness”.

Vaqar was not thereby intending to serve the proceedings. Indeed, in the hearing up until then he had not in any way attempted to give or even show a copy to Iftikhar’s legal team. The only reason he handed the copy over at all was because the judge told him to, so that he would then be able to address the judge on what the document said. And he said he had already sent off the proceedings to Iftikhar’s homes address in Pakistan. Moreover, there is old authority that serving process in the sight of the court is a contempt of court, even if it does not involve the arrest of a party: Cole v Hawkins (1738) And 275, 2 Str 1094. The court should therefore lean against supposing that Vaqar intended to serve process actually in court. And I do. In my judgment what Vaqar did on this occasion was not intended, and did not amount, to service of proceedings.

The other argument that Vaqar advances is that, by opposing his application to transfer the 2018 Possession Claim to the High Court, to be heard with the 2019 English Partnership Claim, Iftikhar has somehow been served with those proceedings, or at any rate cannot now say that he has not been served. The argument appears to be that, when Iftikhar by his lawyers took part in the hearing, they did so in the application in the 2019 English Partnership Claim and not in the application in the 2018 Possession Claim.

However, this is denied by Iftikhar’s contemporaneous skeleton argument, prepared by his counsel for that hearing:

“This skeleton is served in respect of D2-4’s application by notice dated 14 October 2019 with claim number BL-2019-001921 only. Mr Iftikhar Malik has not been served with the High Court Proceedings with claim number BL-2019-001900, nor D2-4’s application by notice dated 4 December 2019 in those proceedings, and has not instructed any lawyers to act on his behalf or to accept service of them. Mr Iftikhar Malik reserves the right to challenge the jurisdiction of the English Court to hear or determine the proceedings numbered BL-2019-001900 if and when he is served with them.”

And it is confirmed by the opening statement in Vaqar’s own skeleton argument for the same hearing, prepared by his counsel, that

“1.

Iftikhar’s representatives appear at this hearing by reason of the order of Mann J 6 Dec-19 [a direction that the two applications be heard together]. Those representatives have not been instructed to accept service in relation to claim number BL-2019-001900, and do not appear in relation to that application”.at this hearing by the J on 6-

In the light of these clear statements, from both sides, Vaqar’s argument is opportunistic. Moreover, like the other arguments, it is feeble, and goes nowhere. It is no basis for supposing that Iftikhar has been served. It is not even a basis for submitting that Iftikhar is in some way estopped from denying that he has been served, even though that had not happened. As a result, I am satisfied that Iftikhar has not, and should not be treated as if he had, been served.

I record that Vaqar has, very belatedly, on 25 July 2025, applied for a further extension of time in which to serve the proceedings on Iftikhar. But this application came much too late to be listed before me on 29 July 2025, and it was not included in the hearing bundle. Consequently, I have not had to deal with it in this judgment. Accordingly, the position I have reached is that, as a matter of law, the court has no jurisdiction over Iftikhar in relation to the 2019 English Partnership Claim.