Federal Court of Australia

Legal Practice Board v Khosa [2026] FCA 1059

ORDERS

THE COURT ORDERS THAT:

1.    Pursuant to s 47B of the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 (Cth), the respondent is granted leave to appear and make submissions at the hearing on 16 July 2026 by audio link.

2.    The respondent’s recusal application is dismissed.

3.    The respondent’s application for review is dismissed.

4.    The Registrar’s orders made on 6 March 2026 are affirmed.

5.    The reasonable costs of the petitioning creditor incurred in the application for review are costs in the bankruptcy, to be taxed if not agreed and payable in accordance with s 109(1)(a) of the Bankruptcy Act 1966 (Cth).

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

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

JACKSON J:

1    A Registrar of this Court has made an order to sequester the estate of the respondent, Manraj Singh Khosa, so that Mr Khosa is a bankrupt. Mr Khosa has applied for review of the Registrar’s decision. The petitioning creditor is the Legal Practice Board of Western Australia (LPBWA). The LPBWA opposes Mr Khosa’s application.

2    Mr Khosa was entitled to apply for review of the Registrar’s decision under s 35A(5) of the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 (Cth). His application was heard on 16 July 2026. It was conducted as a fresh hearing of the petition: see Totev v Sfar [2008] FCAFC 35; (2008) 167 FCR 193 at [14]-[15] (Emmett J), quoted with approval in Bechara v Bates [2021] FCAFC 34; (2021) 286 FCR 166 at [21] (Allsop CJ, Markovic and Colvin JJ). The LPBWA was thus required to establish all the prerequisites for the making of a sequestration order. Mr Khosa raised several grounds of opposition to the petition.

3    For the following reasons, the application for review will be dismissed and the Registrar’s orders made on 6 March 2026 will be affirmed.

History of the bankruptcy petition

4    It is convenient to provide a summary of the history of the matter by way of background. This is drawn from the affidavits that the LPBWA read into evidence at the hearing on 16 July 2026, as detailed below in the section on whether the formal requirements for the making of a sequestration order have been satisfied. Mr Khosa does not accept the correctness of the orders made against him, but the matters of fact set out below were not the subject of any dispute.

5    On 5 October 2023, the State Administrative Tribunal delivered judgment in professional misconduct proceedings brought against Mr Khosa by the Legal Services and Complaints Committee (LSCC), a committee of the LPBWA to which the LPBWA delegates complaints and disciplinary functions: Legal Services and Complaints Committee and Khosa [2023] WASAT 90 (Tribunal proceedings or disciplinary proceedings). Given the LSCC’s position as a statutory committee of the LPBWA, the two are referred to synonymously in these reasons. The Tribunal proceedings had been commenced in August 2017.

6    On 28 March 2024, the Tribunal made a costs order against Mr Khosa in favour of the LPBWA, consequent on the Tribunal’s substantive decision: Legal Services and Complaints Committee and Khosa [2023] WASAT 90 (S). The costs were assessed in the sum of $197,053.05 (Costs Order). That is the debt that founds the creditor’s petition in this matter. The Costs Order was registered as a judgment of the District Court of Western Australia on 1 November 2024, pursuant to s 85 of the State Administrative Tribunal Act 2004 (WA) (Judgment).

7    Mr Khosa sought leave to appeal from the Tribunal’s costs decision, but on 22 November 2024 the Court of Appeal of Western Australia refused leave and the appeal was dismissed. That was on the basis that none of the grounds of appeal had any prospect of succeeding. Special leave to appeal was refused by the High Court on 5 September 2024.

8    On 6 January 2025, the Official Receiver in Bankruptcy issued a bankruptcy notice based on the Judgment. That notice was served on Mr Khosa on 11 February, so that he had until 4 March 2025 to either pay the LPBWA the debt claimed or make arrangements for the settlement of the debt. Mr Khosa did not seek to set aside the bankruptcy notice, nor did he pay the amount claimed or make any arrangement for settlement.

9    On 2 April 2025, the LPBWA filed a creditor’s petition and affidavit verifying the petition, both dated 28 March 2025. The act of bankruptcy relied upon in the petition is Mr Khosa’s failure to comply with the bankruptcy notice.

10    Mr Khosa was served with the petition and filed a ‘notice of grounds of opposition’, supported by an affidavit sworn on 2 August 2025. His grounds of opposition were amended on 22 September 2025.

11    On 6 March 2026, the Registrar made the order sequestering the estate of Mr Khosa. On 20 March 2026, Mr Khosa filed the present application for review.

Mr Khosa’s recusal application

12    At the beginning of the hearing on 16 July 2026, Mr Khosa made an oral application for me to recuse myself for apprehended bias. While Mr Khosa did not quite put it that way, that is how I understood it. After hearing submissions, I indicated that the recusal application was dismissed, and that I would deliver reasons at the same time as judgment in the matter as a whole.

13    The recusal application arose in the following circumstances. On reviewing the matter file the day before the hearing, it came to my attention that the genesis of the proceeding against Mr Khosa that led to the Judgment occurred as far back as August 2017, when the then Legal Profession Complaints Committee (LPCC or Committee) referred complaints about Mr Khosa’s conduct to the Tribunal. Like the present LSCC, the LPCC was a committee of the LPBWA which had that function.

14    On my becoming aware of how far back the complaints against Mr Khosa were made, my Chambers wrote to the parties drawing their attention to the fact that I had been a member of the LPCC in 2017 and 2018 and, while my records did not permit me to be absolutely sure, I had served on what was designated Committee B, from at least 15 December 2017 until at least 18 December 2018. Chambers informed the parties that I had no recollection of dealing with Mr Khosa’s matter during my time on the Committee, and asked the LPBWA to search its records to indicate what they show regarding the period during which I served on the LPCC and whether, in that capacity, I had anything to do with Mr Khosa’s matter. Chambers indicated that the parties would have the opportunity to make submissions about these matters at the hearing the following day.

15    Later on the same day (15 July 2026), the solicitors for the LPBWA replied saying that their instructions were that:

(a)    although the LPCC was one committee, its work was divided between Committees A and B;

(b)    Mr Khosa’s matter was considered by Committee A on 18 October 2016;

(c)    I served on the LPCC between 1 June 2017 and 19 March 2019 as part of Committee B; and

(d)    Mr Khosa was not raised in any meetings of Committee B during the period in which I served.

16    This advice accorded with my recollection, but that recollection and the records I had did not permit me to be as precise as the LPBWA had been.

17    As indicated, at the beginning of the hearing Mr Khosa took the opportunity to make submissions. He described my time on the board as giving rise to a ‘conflict of interest’. He did not contest the position that I had no direct involvement in his matter. But he submitted that conduct of the LPCC of which he complained in this proceeding occurred within the period of my membership of the Committee, when the Committee was responsible for the conduct of its officers and employees. He submitted that I may have been responsible for overseeing that conduct.

18    Mr Khosa made a further submission that I was a director and Chair of Francis Burt Chambers when the initial complainant against him, who I understand was also a barrister, was at that chambers at the same time.

19    Mr Khosa thus submitted that ‘given the outward appearance of existing conflicts of interest, the principle that justice must not only be done but seen to be done’ meant that the hearing should be adjourned and relisted, presumably before a different judge. That is why I took him to be applying for me to recuse myself for apprehended bias.

20    I was concerned to understand better what Mr Khosa was referring to when he said that he wished to complain in this proceeding about conduct of officers and employees of the LPCC. I asked him what conduct he was referring to. He referred to his written submissions, which will be summarised below. The only conduct referred to in those submissions that might conceivably have involved the LPCC concerned alleged decisions by the LPBWA to renew Mr Khosa’s practising certificates for the 2016 and 2017 years. But in truth that conduct was unlikely to have involved the LPCC, which had no function in connection with the annual renewal of practising certificates. And even if it had, it took place before I joined the Committee. Mr Khosa accepted at the hearing that this conduct was not potentially relevant.

21    Mr Khosa then took me to events described in his affidavit of 2 August 2025. These included a writ of summons that Mr Khosa’s wife tried to file in the Supreme Court of Western Australia in June 2018 and at an unspecified later time, but it was not clear how that complained of the conduct of the LPCC. When I asked Mr Khosa about that, he said that the LPCC then sought to amend its grounds of its application before the Tribunal in January 2019, but he conceded that there was no evidence of that in his affidavit, and that it was not mentioned in his submissions.

22    I explored further with Mr Khosa how any of this concerned what the LPCC was alleged to have done, or not to have done, at any time that was relevant to the grounds of opposition to the bankruptcy. I pointed out to him that the grounds themselves did not make that clear. Mr Khosa was unable to take the matter further.

23    The test for the disqualification of a judge for apprehended bias is whether ‘a fair-minded lay observer might reasonably apprehend that the judge might not bring an impartial mind to the resolution of the question the judge is required to decide’: Ebner v Official Trustee in Bankruptcy [2000] HCA 63; (2000) 205 CLR 337 at [6] (Gleeson CJ, McHugh, Gummow and Hayne JJ). The question is to be approached by the three-stage analysis outlined in QYFM v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs [2023] HCA 15; (2023) 279 CLR 148 at [38] (Kiefel CJ and Gageler J):

… (1) identification of the factor which it is said might lead a judge to resolve the question other than on its legal and factual merits; (2) articulation of the logical connection between that factor and the apprehended deviation from deciding that question on its merits; and (3) assessment of the reasonableness of that apprehension from the perspective of a fair-minded lay observer.

24    In the case of my membership of the LPCC, Mr Khosa was not able to articulate any logical connection between that matter and any apprehended deviation on my part from deciding this proceeding on its legal and factual merits. I had nothing to do with Mr Khosa’s matter, and as I have just described, in his submissions he was unable to point to conduct of the Committee or its staff and officers, during my time on it, that was going to be the subject of complaint in this proceeding.

25    As to my former position at Francis Burt Chambers, I am aware of the identity of the complainant barrister to whom Mr Khosa referred. My professional association with that barrister could only be described as remote, and the facts that we were both members of a large barristers’ chambers for a time and that I served on the board of those chambers would not give rise to any reasonable apprehension of bias on the part of a fair-minded lay observer. See the discussion about associations of this kind in Hendry v State of Western Australia (No 3) [2025] FCA 1262 at [58]-[73]. The ‘role’ of the barrister in this proceeding, if it can be described as a role at all, is even more remote than many of the examples canvassed there.

26    Those are the reasons why the recusal application was dismissed.

Formal requirements for sequestration order

27    Pursuant to s 43(1) of the Bankruptcy Act, where a debtor commits an act of bankruptcy and was personally present or ordinarily resident in Australia, the Court may make a sequestration order against the estate of that debtor, on a petition presented by a creditor. There is no dispute that Mr Khosa was present and ordinarily resident in Australia at all material times.

28    Section 52(1) of the Bankruptcy Act provides that, in order to make a sequestration order against the estate of a debtor, at the hearing of a creditor’s petition the Court shall require proof of:

(a)    the matters stated in the petition;

(b)    service of the petition; and

(c)    the fact that the debt or debts on which the petitioning credit relies is or are still owing.

29    The petitioning creditor bears the onus of establishing the matters set out in s 52(1) of the Bankruptcy Act: Houten v Lennon [2025] FCA 252 at [54] (Rofe J). At the hearing, counsel for the LPBWA took me through the formal requirements in s 52(1) of the Bankruptcy Act and I was satisfied that those requirements were satisfied.

Act of bankruptcy

30    As has been said, the creditor’s petition relies on an act of bankruptcy committed by Mr Khosa in failing to comply on or before 4 March 2025 with the requirements of a bankruptcy notice which relies on the debt of $197,053.05 arising out of the Costs Order registered as a judgment of the District Court.

31    The bankruptcy notice was served on Mr Khosa via email on 11 February 2025 pursuant to reg 102(1)(d) and reg 102(3) of the Bankruptcy Regulations 2021 (Cth) (see next paragraph).

Proof of matters stated in the petition

32    The creditor’s petition was supported by:

(a)    an affidavit of service of Gavin Thai sworn on 28 March 2025, confirming service of the bankruptcy notice on 11 February 2025;

(b)    an affidavit of Francis Xavier Hall affirmed on 31 March 2025, in which Mr Hall deposes that the matters stated in the petition are true and that Mr Khosa did not pay the debt within 21 days of service of the bankruptcy notice; and

(c)    an affidavit of search of Mr Thai sworn on 1 April 2025 verifying, in accordance with r 4.04(1) of the Federal Court (Bankruptcy) Rules 2016 (Cth), that a search of court records had confirmed that no application was made in relation to the bankruptcy notice.

33    On the basis of this evidence, I am satisfied that the LPBWA has established the matters stated in the petition.

Proof of service of the petition

34    After unsuccessfully attempting to personally serve Mr Khosa with the petition, the LPBWA sought orders for substituted service. On 27 May 2025, a Registrar made orders providing that personal service of the following documents be dispensed with:

(a)    the creditor’s petition;

(b)    a copy of the orders made on 27 May 2025;

(c)    Mr Thai’s affidavit sworn on 28 March 2025 confirming service of the bankruptcy notice;

(d)    Mr Hall’s affidavit affirmed on 31 March 2025 verifying the creditor’s petition; and

(e)    the consent of a registered trustee (if any).

35    Instead, those documents were to be served on Mr Khosa by:

(a)    emailing them to his email address;

(b)    sending them by pre-paid ordinary post to his nominated address; and

(c)    handing them to a person at Mr Khosa’s address or, failing that, affixing them to the front door of that address in a sealed envelope addressed to Mr Khosa.

36    An affidavit of Yasmin Catherine McCann sworn on 11 June 2025 states that she served the documents listed above on Mr Khosa by email and by pre-paid ordinary post on 30 May 2025. Ms McCann also states that on 30 May 2025 she sent text messages to Mr Khosa’s mobile phone number notifying him of service and of the hearing listed for 17 June 2025.

37    In compliance with the remainder of the orders dated 27 May 2025, the affidavit of Graeme Robert Coates sworn on 3 June 2025 states that he attempted to hand the documents listed above to a person at Mr Khosa’s address on 31 May 2025. Having been unable to do so, Mr Coates effected service by affixing the documents in a sealed envelope addressed to Mr Khosa on the front door of the residence.

38    Mr Khosa entered a notice of appearance on 16 June 2025 and has not raised any objection to the service of the petition. I am satisfied that service of the petition occurred in fact on 30 May 2025, but in any event completely in accordance with the substituted service orders by 31 May 2025.

Proof that the debt the petition relies on is still owing

39    Rule 4.06(3) of the Bankruptcy Rules provides that the applicant creditor must file an affidavit of a person who has, no earlier than the day before the hearing of the petition, conducted a search of the National Personal Insolvency Index. An affidavit of Ms McCann sworn on 15 July 2026 deposes to having undertaken that search and confirms that the only reference to Mr Khosa on the Index is the sequestration order the subject of this proceeding.

40    Finally, r 4.06(4) of the Bankruptcy Rules provides that the applicant creditor must file an affidavit stating that each debt on which the applicant creditor relies is still owing. An affidavit of John-Paul Colella affirmed on 15 July 2026 deposes that the debt of $197,053.05 is still owing. I am satisfied of that fact.

Conclusion on formal requirements and existence of discretion

41    Mr Khosa did not contest any of these matters. I am satisfied that the LPBWA has proved the matters set out in s 52(1) of the Bankruptcy Act, so that the Court’s power to make a sequestration order against the estate of Mr Khosa was enlivened.

42    Nevertheless, s 52(2) of the Bankruptcy Act provides that I may dismiss the petition if Mr Khosa satisfies me that he is able to pay his debts, or that there is some other sufficient cause why a sequestration order ought not be made. Mr Khosa does not say that he is able to pay his debts, so he must be asserting ‘other sufficient cause’ to dismiss the petition under s 52(2)(b). He carries the burden of establishing that: Li v Wu [2020] FCA 776 at [96] (Griffiths J) and the cases cited there. In deciding whether to exercise the power to dismiss the petition under s 52(2), the Court is exercising a discretion: Endresz v Australian Securities and Investments Commission (No 2) [2015] FCAFC 33; (2015) 228 FCR 334 at [36] (Edmonds, Gordon and Beach JJ). The circumstances capable of constituting ‘other sufficient cause’ under s 52(2)(b) ‘are extremely variable [and] it is inappropriate to catalogue or circumscribe them’: Clyne v Deputy Commissioner of Taxation (1985) 5 FCR 1 at 5 (Fisher, Morling and Wilcox JJ), citing Cain v Whyte (1933) 48 CLR 639 at 645.

Mr Khosa’s grounds of opposition

43    In his notice of grounds of opposition and his written submissions, Mr Khosa raised the following grounds of opposition to the petition:

1.    The Applicant engaged in conduct giving rise to there being grounds for an indemnity costs order made against it.

2.    The Applicant engaged in conduct amounting to an abuse of office and or power.

3.    The Applicant engaged in conduct giving rise to discrimination based on culture and or race and or religion.

4.    The Applicant engaged in conduct amounting to misleading the State Administrative Tribunal when it allowed its ink dating report to stand after it was demonstrated that the report contained factual errors and that the author of the report had lied on his curriculum vitae used to establish his suitability.

44    I will address Mr Khosa’s first ground last, because it is clear from his submissions that it relies on the conduct of the LPBWA as alleged in the first three grounds. Because of the way in which Mr Khosa advanced his submissions at the hearing concerning ground 3, I have dealt with that ground following ground 4, as they share the same factual background.

45    Before embarking on an examination of each ground it is necessary to observe, however, that nowhere does Mr Khosa articulate how any of the grounds, or all of them together, give rise to sufficient cause not to make the sequestration order. The closest he got to that was in oral submissions in relation to ground 1, when he said that ‘the conduct that gives rise to the award of those indemnity costs should also give rise to that the applicant ought not to be entitled to its costs’ (ts 12). But even then, why that was so was not explained. To the extent that I am led to speculate below about where Mr Khosa’s submissions led, that is because he never made that clear.

Ground 2 – conduct amounting to an abuse of office and/or power

46    By this ground, Mr Khosa alleges that the LPBWA engaged in conduct amounting to an abuse of office and/or power in order to exert undue influence over him in the course of the Tribunal proceedings. He submits that the LPBWA refused to renew his legal practising certificate for the years 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 and instead deferred renewal. In his affidavit sworn on 2 August 2025, on which he relied, Mr Khosa says that this led to an inability to renew his registration as a migration agent and he deposes to resulting damage done to his migration practice. He says in the affidavit that the LPBWA does not have the statutory power to defer the renewal of a practising certificate. He alleges that the LPBWA thus acted unreasonably and in abuse of its office and its power.

47    It appears that the connection between this alleged conduct of the LPBWA and the sequestration order that is asserted by Mr Khosa is that the conduct was during the ‘investigation phase’ prior to the LPBWA bringing the disciplinary proceedings to the Tribunal that ultimately resulted in the Costs Order and the Judgment. Mr Khosa submits that ‘it can be inferred that the Applicant exerted undue influence over the Respondent as the Respondent defended the proceedings’.

48    There is no basis in the evidence for that inference. Even if the matters of fact and law asserted by Mr Khosa are assumed to be correct – that the LPBWA did defer renewal of his practising certificates and that it had no power to do so – there is no foothold in the evidence for any finding that this was because it wished to exert influence on Mr Khosa.

49    More broadly, the claim makes no sense. The alleged conduct appears to have taken place before the Tribunal proceedings were commenced in August 2017. If it was after that time, Mr Khosa provides no evidence of that fact. And he articulates no intelligible connection between the alleged conduct and anything that he may have done or omitted to do in the course of the proceedings, so that it could amount to undue influence.

50    Finally, even if Mr Khosa were to establish that the LPBWA engaged in the conduct with that intent in, say, 2017, that is so vague and general, and so remote from the Costs Order of 2023 and the Judgment of 2024, that it cannot possibly bear on whether a sequestration order ought to have been made, or ought be made now. Again, Mr Khosa articulated no intelligible connection between the conduct and the Costs Order, the Judgment or the sequestration order.

51    I do not uphold ground 2 of Mr Khosa’s opposition to the bankruptcy petition.

Ground 4 – LPBWA misled the Tribunal by allowing the ink dating report to stand

52    In his written submissions, Mr Khosa put his fourth ground as follows:

Objection 4 – The Applicant engaged in conduct amounting to misleading the State Administrative Tribunal when it allowed its ink dating report to stand after it was demonstrated that the report contained factual errors and that the author of the report had lied on his curriculum vitae used to establish his suitability.

53    This ground concerns an issue in the Tribunal proceedings concerning contemporaneous notes taken by Mr Khosa’s wife of a conversation between Mr Khosa and officers of the LPBWA during a meeting in June 2015. The notes allegedly disproved what the LPBWA had been alleging in the Tribunal proceedings, which was that Mr Khosa had made false or misleading statements at that June 2015 meeting.

54    Mr Khosa’s wife took these notes in a diary of hers. The LPBWA applied to have that diary forensically examined to verify the authenticity of the notes, and the ‘ink dating report’ is a reference to an expert forensic report prepared on instruction from the LPBWA during the Tribunal proceedings.

55    Importantly, the report was ultimately not admitted into evidence before the Tribunal, because the diary needed to be tendered through Mr Khosa’s wife, and neither Mr Khosa nor his wife attended the final hearing of the disciplinary proceedings. Nevertheless, in his ground of objection, Mr Khosa alleges that this report was infected by error and that the LPBWA misled the Tribunal by allowing it to stand.

56    Once again, Mr Khosa did not articulate any connection between these allegations and the making of the sequestration order against him. Presumably, he alleges that the misconduct of the LPBWA in failing to withdraw the ink dating report from the Tribunal so infects the Tribunal’s judgment in the disciplinary proceedings, and the ensuing Costs Order and Judgment, that the debt on which the act of bankruptcy is based should not be considered to be owing.

57    It would appear, then, that Mr Khosa relies on the principles as to when a Court will ‘go behind’ a judgment debt. Given the uncertainty about whether that is in fact what he is saying, and the undeveloped nature of his submissions, it is not necessary to recite all the principles governing that which were laid down by a majority of the High Court (Kiefel CJ, Keane and Nettle JJ, Edelman J agreeing) in Ramsay Health Care Australia Pty Ltd v Compton [2017] HCA 28; (2017) 261 CLR 132. It is enough to say that what must be shown are grounds to go behind the judgment debt in terms of ‘substantial reasons … for questioning whether behind [the] judgment there was in truth or reality a debt due to the petitioner’ (Wren v Mahony (1972) 126 CLR 212 at 225 (Barwick CJ)) or whether ‘there was on the face of things a real question as to whether [the alleged debtor] had failed to present his case on its merits at the trial’ in the court that gave judgment against him, or whether there was ‘a substantial question’ as to whether the debt was owing: Ramsay Health Care at [65]-[66], [72].

58    The authorities recognise, and I recognise here, that there is a distinction between a debt arising directly from a monetary claim, and a debt arising from a costs order that is not part of a determination in respect of an underlying debt: see Kitay, in the matter of Frigger (No 2) [2018] FCA 1032 at [33] (Colvin J). But as Banks-Smith J said in Waterton v Lafferty, in the matter of Lafferty [2019] FCA 1267 at [73]:

If that underlying judgment itself is open to question as to whether there has been fraud, collusion or a miscarriage of justice then there may be a sufficient connection between the costs and the judgment to justify going behind the costs judgment and the underlying judgment, albeit that the costs liability alone comprises the debt. I do not read Ramsay Health Care or Kitay as denying the potential for such an argument.

59    Presumably, here Mr Khosa alleges that the failure of the LPBWA to withdraw the ‘ink dating report’ means that the final decision in the Tribunal proceedings, and so the Costs Order, was the result of such fraud, collusion or miscarriage of justice as to warrant going behind the Costs Order. But the facts simply do not bear that out. Even if it is assumed for the sake of argument that the expert report was the product of fraud and should have been withdrawn, the simple fact is that it was not before the Tribunal as evidence at the hearing of the disciplinary proceedings, so there is no rational basis to think that it had any influence on that decision or on the ensuing Costs Order.

60    Further to that, counsel for the LPBWA also submits that ground 4 of Mr Khosa’s objections effectively restates ground 4 of his appeal grounds against the Tribunal’s decision, which was:

The Tribunal erred when it admitted a report into evidence in circumstances where the Respondent was aware that the author had lied to established [sic] his expertise and the report produced by the author was based on non-applicable standards.

61    This ground of appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal because the report was not admitted into evidence. To the extent that this ground of objection is an attempt to relitigate Mr Khosa’s earlier appeal of the Tribunal’s decision to the Court of Appeal and the High Court, that too should be dismissed.

62    I do not uphold ground 4 of Mr Khosa’s opposition to the bankruptcy petition.

Ground 3 – LPBWA engaged in discrimination

63    In his written submissions, Mr Khosa alleges that the Tribunal unreasonably required his family doctor to attend at the Tribunal at short notice to answer questions. This is said to have been ‘racial profiling’ because both Mr Khosa and the general practitioner are of Indian descent. It would appear that the ground impugns the LPBWA in this regard because it supported the decision to have the doctor attend.

64    This allegation is without substance. There is no rational ground to assert that the similar ethnic background of Mr Khosa and the doctor was any part of the reason why the doctor was required to attend to give evidence at the Tribunal (if indeed that is what occurred). The claim is scandalous.

65    At the hearing, Mr Khosa also referred to handwritten notes taken by his wife of the meeting that occurred in June 2015 with members of the LPBWA that were contained in the diary that has already been mentioned (or an ‘Almanac’ as described in his affidavit of 2 August 2025). As set out in the discussion of ground 4, the LPBWA applied to have this diary produced so that it could be forensically examined. Mr Khosa seemed to submit that, by applying to have this diary produced for testing during the Tribunal proceedings when it had not already been produced, the LPBWA was intimating that Mr Khosa ‘ought to have known about the diary, completely ignoring the fact that [his wife] is her own person’ (ts 14). Mr Khosa submitted that the LPBWA’s alleged suggestion that he ought to have known about his wife’s notes, or that he ought to have been aware of everything his wife did, had to have been the result of an ‘element of racial profiling’ based on the ethnicity of both Mr Khosa and his wife, being Indian, or the fact that they are members of a certain faith.

66    That allegation is all but unintelligible. On the face of things, testing the date of creation of the relevant entries in the diary or almanac served the forensic purposes of the LPBWA in the Tribunal proceedings. The asserted link between the LPBWA’s pursuit of the testing and the race of Mr Khosa or his wife is fanciful.

67    Even if these allegations had not been scandalous and fanciful, as they are, once again there would be no intelligible connection between the alleged conduct of the LPBWA and the Tribunal’s decision to make an adverse finding against him, or the discretion of the Tribunal after that to make the Costs Order.

68    I do not uphold ground 3 of Mr Khosa’s opposition to the bankruptcy petition.

Ground 1 – LPBWA engaged in conduct giving rise to grounds for an indemnity costs order

69    Finally, Mr Khosa’s first ground alleges that the LPBWA engaged in conduct giving grounds for an indemnity costs order to be made against it. As set out under grounds 2 and 3 above, Mr Khosa has been unsuccessful in establishing the alleged conduct of the LPBWA. To the extent that that alleged conduct forms the basis of this ground, this ground too must fail.

70    I have not found it necessary to rule on the allegations that are said to support ground 4, namely that the expert report contained factual errors, and was based on a false curriculum vitae for the expert, and so the LPBWA should have withdrawn it. To investigate those matters would be to embark on a fruitless inquiry into matters entirely collateral to the issues in this proceeding, which concerns whether a sequestration order should be made. Mr Khosa appeared to submit at the hearing that the LPBWA’s conduct in these proceedings has not yet been examined, and as such, this Court should examine its conduct and find that it gives rise to grounds for an indemnity costs order to be made against it.

71    That is misconceived; this Court has no roving commission to investigate the conduct of litigants before different courts or tribunals and make rulings on their conduct for the purposes of awards of costs. The body with power to award costs against the LPBWA in relation to the Tribunal proceedings was the Tribunal. Mr Khosa presented no evidence of having sought costs on this basis from the Tribunal.

72    Counsel for the LPBWA drew my attention to the fact that Mr Khosa had already unsuccessfully appealed against the Costs Order to the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal found that the relevant ground of appeal had no reasonable prospect of succeeding. There is no sensible basis on which Mr Khosa can argue that the LPBWA is not entitled to recover its costs.

73    I do not uphold ground 1 of Mr Khosa’s opposition to the bankruptcy petition.

Bias on the part of the Registrar

74    In his written submissions, Mr Khosa claims that comments made by the Registrar during the final hearing of this proceeding demonstrated that he had a predisposition to making sequestration orders without considering the merits of a case before him, and that the Registrar has done so in this case.

75    Mr Khosa has provided no evidence to support this allegation. The Registrar gave detailed written reasons for making the sequestration order which speak for themselves and do not demonstrate any predisposition of the kind alleged.

76    In any event, since this is a hearing de novo, it is not necessary to identify error on part of the Registrar.

77    To the extent that this is a ground that Mr Khosa relies upon, the ground fails for those reasons.

Inquiry into the LPBWA

78    Mr Khosa’s submissions also appear to contain a fifth ‘ground’, which amounts to a request that any decision in this proceeding be deferred until after the outcome of the Parliament of Western Australia’s Inquiry into the LPBWA is published. But the outcome of that Inquiry has no intelligible connection with the question of whether a sequestration order should be made against Mr Khosa.

Conclusion

79    For the above reasons, Mr Khosa’s application for review is dismissed and the Registrar’s orders of 6 March 2026 are affirmed. The reasonable costs incurred by the LPBWA in this hearing will be costs in the bankruptcy.

Associate:

Dated:    4 August 2026