Abdul Wahab Ghows J

This is an application to set aside the registration under the Reciprocal Enforcement of Commonwealth Judgments Act (Chapter 24) of a judgment of the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division dated October 22, 1981 and an Order of the Court of Appeal dated May 24, 1983. The judgment creditors in this case are the Bank of India which I shall refer to as "the Bank" and the first judgment debtors are the Trans Continental Commodity Merchants Limited (hereinafter referred to as "TCCM") and the second judgment debtor is Jashbai Nagjibhai Patel (hereinafter referred to as "Patel").

The facts are briefly as follows. The Bank is an Indian bank with a branch in the city of London. It carried on the business of an international bank including the handling of documentary credits and the provision of finance for exports. It also had a foreign exchange department. TCCM was one of the Bank's customers. TCCM carried on the business of trading in edible oils and other commodities. TCCM sought banking facilities in London with the Bank and these facilities included the handling of documentary credits and all the company's foreign exchange deals. These deals took the form of