Federal Court of Australia

Lal v Royal Australasian College of Physicians [2025] FCA 673

ORDERS

THE COURT ORDERS THAT:

1.    The interlocutory application dated 17 June 2025 be dismissed.

2.    The application for an extension of time and leave to appeal dated 17 May 2025 be dismissed.

3.    There be no order as to costs.

Note:    Entry of orders is dealt with in Rule 39.32 of the Federal Court Rules 2011.

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

BROMWICH J:

1    A proceeding brought in the original jurisdiction of this Court by the applicant, Dr Rakesh Lal, was the subject of three successful applications for summary dismissal brought by each of the respondents, being the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP), the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), and the Mackay Hospital and Health Service: Lal v Royal Australasian College of Physicians [2025] FCA 348, published on 11 April 2025. Dr Lal wishes to challenge that summary judgment decision.

2    The primary judge found that the claims advanced by Dr Lal against RACP, AHPRA and Mackay Hospital did not attract this Court’s jurisdiction and had no reasonable prospect of success. Summary judgment was therefore entered against Dr Lal with costs.

3    Dr Lal’s case, as an overseas trained doctor, concerned him satisfying certain training and supervision requirements as determined by peer reviewers. A subcommittee of the RACP determined that his performance under that peer review process was unsatisfactory. By a process that does not require detailing for present purposes, his employment with Mackay Hospital ceased. Dr Lal unsuccessfully sought a range of remedies in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT), and the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC). He then commenced a proceeding in this Court concerning his accreditation in Australia as a medical practitioner with Mackay Hospital, seeking:

(a)    compensatory and punitive damages;

(b)    injunctive relief in relation to the enforcement of a deed of settlement that he had entered into with Mackay Hospital, apparently upon the basis of allegations of coercion in being made to enter into it; and

(c)    declaratory relief.

A complex array of further relief was also sought in a statement of claim which contained further allegations against the respondents including breaches of various statutory duties.

4    The primary judge summarised, addressed and evaluated the cases advanced by each of the respondents in relation to the absence of jurisdiction bestowed on this Court to entertain any aspect of Dr Lal’s case, and its lack of prospects of success in any event. Her Honour also addressed Dr Lal’s contrary arguments. Her Honour accepted the respondents’ submissions, giving detailed reasons for doing so. The primary judge’s reasons included the following conclusions, representative of the highpoint of the case that Dr Lal brought against each of the respondents, and not intended to be exhaustive:

(a)    In relation to RACP at [54]:

The claims advanced by Dr Lal against the RACP do not attract the jurisdiction of the Federal Court merely for the reason that the RACP is a corporate entity – rather, as has been explained repeatedly, it is necessary that the rights, duties, or subject matter with which the controversy is concerned have their origin, in or owe their existence to, a law of the Commonwealth. Dr Lal has not identified any other basis for his claim that the substantive proceedings against the RACP arise under a Commonwealth law. While Dr Lal refers in his submissions to migration, employment and statutory recognition, he has not pleaded any cause of action against the RACP referable to such areas of law.

(b)    In relation to AHPRA at [70]-[74]:

Section 75(v) of the Constitution is plainly not a source of jurisdiction for this Court. For the same reasons as I explained earlier in this judgment, in respect of the RACP’s Application, Dr Lal’s submission that s 75(v) of the Constitution gives rise to jurisdiction is incorrect.

Dr Lal also asserts that s 39B(1) of the Judiciary Act is a relevant source of jurisdiction in respect of his claims against AHPRA. Clearly, ss 39B(1), (1A)(a) and (1A)(b) of the Judiciary Act cannot give rise to jurisdiction as the Commonwealth is not a party to the matter, no relief is sought against the Commonwealth, and the matter does not involve interpretation of the Constitution.

As was the case with the RACP Application, the only potential source of jurisdiction of the Federal Court is under s 39(1A)(c) of the Judiciary Act.

For reasons I have already explained in relation to the RACP Application, s 145.4(1) of the Commonwealth Criminal Code does not found jurisdiction in this Court in this matter in light of ss 39B(1A)(c) and 67G of the Judiciary Act.

To the extent that Dr Lal relies on the ADJR Act in respect of alleged conduct of AHPRA, I again note the decision of this Court in Broadbent. Dr Lal has not referenced any “decision” of AHPRA for which he could seek relief under the ADJR Act.

(c)    In relation to Mackay Hospital, among other reasons, the primary judge accepted at [81] that:

…Dr Lal’s employment was subject to State law, namely the Public Service Act and the Industrial Relations Act. Any employment dispute by Dr Lal with MHHS in respect of his previous employment would be in the State jurisdiction, not the jurisdiction of this Court.

5    While this Court has jurisdiction to determine an appeal from a decision of a single judge under s 24(1)(a) of the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 (Cth), leave to appeal must be obtained pursuant to s 24(1A) as a summary dismissal decision is specified to be interlocutory in nature by s 24(1D)(b). Under r 35.13 of the Federal Court Rules 2011 (Cth), an application for leave to appeal must be brought within 14 days of the primary judge’s decision. Dr Lal did not lodge his application for leave to appeal until 18 May 2025, well after that 14-day period had expired. He therefore applied for an extension of time under r 35.14 of the Rules as well.

6    Dr Lal has also filed an interlocutory application in this appeal proceeding.

7    Dr Lal is a litigant in person. He did not appear at the hearing of the summary judgment applications below, despite being given an opportunity to do so. It appears from his communications with the Court that he is based in New Dehli, India. He seeks to have this appellate proceeding case managed and determined on the papers. The preliminary step of dealing with the applications as a single judge has been allocated to me. Hearing of the appeal by the Full Court will only occur if both the extension of time and leave to appeal sought are granted.

8    The primary judge’s decision was concerned with summary dismissal, not with the trial of the issues in the substantive proceeding that would have been heard and determined if the summary judgment applications were dismissed. The appeal jurisdiction presently under consideration is necessarily directed at the decision that was made by the primary judge, and at the need for establishing error in that decision. I will turn to the substance of the appeal that Dr Lal wishes to bring after first addressing the interlocutory application.

9    An interlocutory application in an appeal proceeding must be directed to that proceeding. That is, it must seek an interlocutory outcome in the exercise of appellate jurisdiction. The interlocutory application filed by Dr Lal does not have that character. Rather, he contends that some of the issues he sought to raise in the primary proceeding were not addressed by the primary judge and seeks to have them heard and determined within the Court’s appellate jurisdiction. This he cannot do because that would amount to exercising original jurisdiction.

10    Further, the first part of her Honour’s reasons for granting summary judgment concerned the failure of the proceeding before her to engage the jurisdiction of this Court. Unless that conclusion is disturbed, there was no occasion to consider this aspect of Dr Lal’s case before her Honour, if in fact it was any part of his case. If it was not part of his case, then it does not engage the appellate jurisdiction at all.

11    In any event, aspects of Dr Lal’s interlocutory application apparently mirror an interlocutory application he filed in the primary proceeding that was dismissed by the primary judge. The substance of the present interlocutory application, and thus apparently of the one that was filed below, involves Dr Lal seeking “urgent and protective determination of a threshold legal question — namely, whether the Applicant is entitled to statutory indemnity under public and contractual frameworks including QH-POL-153, s 20 of the Hospital and Health Boards Act 2011 (Qld), and ss 48 and 54 of the Insurance Contracts Act 1984 (Cth)” (emphasis in original). As this seems to be tied to the proceeding that has been summarily dismissed by the primary judge, it is tolerably clear that if there was no jurisdiction and no prospects of success in that proceeding, then the applicant could not be in any better position to seek the same interlocutory relief in this appeal proceeding.

12    It follows that the interlocutory application must be dismissed. For completeness, it should be noted that Dr Lal cannot rectify this situation by seeking to refile the interlocutory application in the Court’s original jurisdiction, because such an application must relate to substantive relief; and because there must be jurisdiction to entertain the substantive relief sought. If any attempt is made by Dr Lal to re-file his interlocutory application in any other form, it should not be accepted for filing, noting that the proceeding that was before the primary judge remains summarily dismissed.

13    Turning to the application for an extension of time and leave to appeal, I have examined the application for an extension of time and leave to appeal, and the proposed notice of appeal, as well as the filed supporting materials. Dr Lal does not identify any errors in the primary judge’s reasons for concluding that this Court has no jurisdiction to entertain the proceeding, beyond mere assertions of error as to the outcome, expressed in general terms. In substance, Dr Lal complains about the primary judge’s conclusion without identifying any errors in her Honour’s reasoning.

14    I have read the primary judge’s reasons and can see no apparent error, including in the passages reproduced above. Contrary to Dr Lal’s submissions, it is plain that he was afforded an opportunity to be heard, and a decision was made by him to not appear at the hearing of the summary dismissal applications. In any event, he does not appear to have advanced any arguments which could possibly have changed the outcome and as already noted, has not done so in this appeal proceeding. The proposed appeal cannot be said to have any prospect of success at all, let alone any reasonable prospect of success.

15    Put bluntly, the appeal that Dr Lal seeks to bring is doomed to fail. It follows that the primary judge’s decision is not attended by any doubt, let alone sufficient doubt to warrant reconsideration. Leave to appeal must therefore be refused. In those circumstances, it would be futile to extend the time to bring the application for leave to appeal. That aspect of his application must therefore also be dismissed.

16    I took the deliberate step of not engaging the respondents in this appeal proceeding, beyond ensuring that they were aware of it and of the course I proposed to adopt, until I had considered the application for an extension of time and leave to appeal, intending only to do so if there was any apparent merit in the appeal sought to be brought by Dr Lal, in which case the respondents’ participation would be invited. I have taken the same approach to Dr Lal’s interlocutory application. This approach to both applications was taken for the benefit of the parties, as it avoided the respondents incurring potentially unnecessary costs, a portion of which might have been payable by Dr Lal if he was unsuccessful, leaving an irrecoverable component to be met by the respondents.

17    It follows that the application for an extension of time and leave to appeal must be dismissed and there should be no order as to costs.

Associate:

Dated:    26 June 2025