The High Court has refused Anne Kelly’s application to set aside or revise a 2015 order that corrected the statutory basis for replacing Nehaal Singh as liquidator of Kelly Trucks Ltd. The court said her complaints about the legality of that correction were matters for an appeal, not a further application to the judge who made it.
Kelly Trucks entered creditors’ voluntary liquidation on 22 December 2013. Singh was appointed liquidator at a creditors’ meeting on 3 January 2014. Creditor Costello Transport Ltd objected to his appointment and sought his removal, proposing Gerard Murphy as his replacement. On 17 February 2014, the High Court removed Singh and appointed Murphy. The order referred to section 228 of the Companies Act 1963.
In April 2015, the court amended that order under the “Slip Rule” and its inherent jurisdiction, substituting section 277. The judge said section 228 did not apply because the company was in creditors’ voluntary liquidation, rather than an official liquidation. The correction followed an application by Costello Transport and Murphy.
Kelly’s February 2019 motion sought 15 forms of relief, including corrections to the 2015 judgment, declarations about the court record and the judge’s jurisdiction, and confirmation that Singh remained liquidator. She argued that the 2015 correction had gone beyond fixing an accidental error and was legally wrong. No replying affidavit was served, although counsel appeared for the respondent.
Justice Baker said the Slip Rule could correct an order to reflect what the court had actually decided, but could not be used to alter its effect with hindsight. Kelly’s claims challenged the legality and factual basis of the 2015 correction itself. The proper remedy, the judge said, was an appeal. The High Court was “functus officio”—it had no jurisdiction to set aside or vary the order.
The judge also found that the delay and the steps taken in the liquidation since 2015 weighed against granting relief, noting that the 2015 judgment had been relied on in a separate January 2019 judgment concerning applications against the company’s directors. Baker declined to make an order confirming the authenticity or accuracy of the 2014 hearing recording, saying the record spoke for itself. She also refused Kelly’s request for an Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission representative to act as amicus curiae.
Baker refused all reliefs sought. The ruling did not decide an appeal against the 2015 order; it held that such challenges belonged before an appellate court.