Court Procedures Rules 2006

The court may—

set aside interrogatories, or any interrogatory, on a ground mentioned in rule 631 (1); or

on a ground mentioned in rule 631 (1), set aside, order to be removed from the court file, or order to be removed from the court file and destroyed, any answers to interrogatories that have been filed; or

order a party to answer, or to give a further answer to, an interrogatory that the party has—

failed to answer (sufficiently or at all); or

made an objection to answering that the court disallows; or

make any other order about the service or answering of interrogatories (including an order about costs) that it considers appropriate.

The court may make an order under this rule on the application of a party or on its own initiative.

Pt 6.2 (Applications in proceedings) applies to an application for an order under this rule.

Before making an order under subrule (1), the court must have regard to the following matters:

the principle that interrogatories in a proceeding should be limited to interrogatories that are reasonable and necessary for fairly disposing of the proceeding, or part of the proceeding, or for saving costs;

the likely relevance and significance, in relation to the proceeding, of interrogatories, or particular interrogatories, and the answers;

the likely time, cost and inconvenience of answering interrogatories or particular interrogatories.

Subrule (3) does not limit the matters to which the court may have regard.

An order under subrule (1) (c) may include, for a party who has failed to answer an interrogatory (sufficiently or at all), an order for the oral examination of—

if the party is an entity mentioned in rule 640 (1) (Answers by governments, corporations etc)—a person, or the holder of a position, stated by the court; or

in any other case—the party.

The questions asked, and answers given, on an examination under subrule (5)—

must be taken down in writing and certified by an officer of the court; and

as certified, are taken for this division to be interrogatories and answers to interrogatories.

An affidavit must not be used for an application for an order under this rule unless the court otherwise orders.