Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-001033

First-tier Tribunal Nos: PA/61205/2023
LP/06977/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

21st May 2025

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE HUTCHINSON

Between

KK
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: In person, No legal representation
For the Respondent: Ms L Clewley, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 30 April 2025

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, [the appellant] (and/or any member of his family, expert, witness or other person the Tribunal considers should not be identified) is granted anonymity.

No-one shall publish or reveal any information, including the name or address of the appellant, likely to lead members of the public to identify the appellant (and/or other person). Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS
Introduction
1. The appellant is a citizen of India born on 2 September 1997. The appellant applied to the respondent on asylum, humanitarian protection and human rights grounds on 20 December 2021. That application was refused on 30 October 2023. The appellant’s appeal against the decision was dismissed by First-tier Tribunal Judge Hallen on 15 January 2025, after a hearing on 8 January 2025.
2. Permission to appeal was granted by Judge of the First-tier Tribunal Gumsley, on the basis that whilst the grounds of appeal from the unrepresented appellant contained many grounds which appeared to be a repetition of the issues and factors which were or could have been placed before the First-tier Tribunal Judge and the judge could not have made an error of law for failing to take into account material not before them, it was arguable that the judge erred in failing to consider the appellant’s claim that she converted to Islam and the risk that this might create; and secondly that the judge’s consideration of the appellant’s Article 8 private life was arguably insufficient.
Submissions – Error of Law
3. As the appellant was unrepresented I explained with the assistance of an Urdu interpreter, having ensured they understood each other, the issues in the appeal. The appellant confirmed that she had been unable to engage legal representation, legal aid having been withdrawn (and the appellant appeared in person before the First-tier Tribunal). The appellant confirmed that she was in a position to proceed.
4. The appellant indicated that the issues were firstly her conversion, and secondly her wanting to get married to her partner (who accompanied her to the hearing) and to have a life in the UK. The appellant told the Upper Tribunal that it would be dangerous for her to go back to India, particularly if her family found out that she had changed her religion.
5. Although there was no Rule 24 response, in oral submissions by Ms Clewley for the respondent, it was argued in a short summary as follows:
6. Ms Clewley accepted that the judge did not expressly deal with the appellant’s claimed conversion to Islam in findings, having mentioned conversion at [11]. Ms Clewley relied on HK v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2006] EWCA Civ 1037 and submitted that the judge would have inevitably reached the same conclusion. Ms Clewley submitted that the respondent’s review and submissions did not accept the appellant’s claimed conversion. In the alternative that the claimed conversion was accepted, the respondent had relied in submissions, on the April 2024 CPIN on religious minorities, version 4 at paragraphs 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.7.1. It had been the respondent’s submissions in the alternative that the evidence indicated that there was no risk to converts to Islam in India from either state or non-state actors. It was noted that there had been two Muslim presidents.
7. Even if the appellant’s claim was taken at its highest therefore, the appellant was not at risk of persecution and the judge would have reached the same conclusion. There was no material error.
8. Although the appellant had stated, for the first time in submissions before the Upper Tribunal, that she was at risk from her family due to the claimed conversion, this was not her claim before the First-tier Tribunal either at the hearing or in her interviews. Indeed, Ms Clewley pointed out that in her asylum interview the appellant had confirmed her religion was Sikh. The case before the First-tier Tribunal had been in relation to claimed risk from her family/her estranged husband’s family, which was addressed including in the background country information.
9. In relation to ground 2 Ms Clewley accepted that the appellant was a litigant in person and noted that she had reiterated the basis of the claim before the First-tier Tribunal, which was essentially a family life claim and this was considered by the judge. Ms Clewley also submitted that in the grounds of appeal at page 384 of the consolidated bundle, the appellant had relied on the issue of religious conversion and family life and had not pleaded private life, although Ms Clewley recognised that the appellant was a litigant in person so might not have properly delineated her grounds.
10. In any event, Ms Clewley relied on paragraph [35], where the judge considered the appellant’s private life. However, it was her submission that the judge could only consider the evidence before the First-tier tribunal and therefore the findings were necessarily less detailed than the findings on family life. However it was submitted that these findings were proper and adequate.
11. The appellant in reply indicated that in an interview in 2021 she had indicated that she was Sikh as she had not converted until 2022. Although the appellant conceded that she had also indicated in her April 2023 asylum interview that she was Sikh (question 40), with no mention of her claimed conversion in 2022, the appellant told the Upper Tribunal that she was advised to say this.
Conclusions – Error of Law
12. As I indicated at the hearing I do not find there to be a material error of law, for the reasons set out below.
Ground 1
13. As particularised by the permission judge, it was argued that the First-tier Tribunal had erred in not considering the appellant’s claimed conversion and the risk that this might create to her. The appellant in her Asylum Interview Record, on 12 April 2023, question 40, was asked to confirm her religion and confirmed that this was Sikh and went on to state expressly when asked at her asylum interview, that she had no other reason to claim asylum.
14. The respondent in the Reasons for Refusal Letter dated 30 October 2023 did not address the appellant’s claimed conversion, No doubt this was because the appellant had indicated at interview that her religion was Sikh and that she had no other reason to claim asylum. However in the stitched bundle at page 384 of the consolidated bundle the appellant in her grounds of appeal claimed to the First-tier Tribunal that she had converted to Islam on 8 May 2022 and claimed that she feared for her safety as she would not be accepted by the Sikh community and she would not be accepted by her village, ‘other than her family’. The appellant produced to the First-tier Tribunal what purported to be written confirmation of conversion to Islam.
15. In the respondent’s review, paragraph 10, the respondent noted that the appellant had provided a certificate of special recognition acceptance of Islam and noted that the names and dates were handwritten with no other supporting evidence and that this was simply an attempt to bolster her asylum claim. The respondent also noted that the appellant in her appeal reasons had stated that she was not supported or legally advised to provide Convention reasons for claiming asylum and for this reason had not previously mentioned her conversion to Islam (although she told the Upper Tribunal in submissions, that she was specifically advised not to mention it). Although the appellant had provided outdated articles in relation to dowry deaths and women killed for religion conversion, the respondent had submitted that little weight should be attached to this evidence.
16. Although the judge, at paragraph [11], indicated that she had an article relating to a woman being murdered for having converted to Christianity, there was no further express mention of the appellant’s conversion. The respondent had accepted the appellant was a national of India and considered the appellant’s original claim in relation to fear of her family/her husband’s family, who she claimed wanted to kill her as she claimed they wanted her to stay with her estranged husband, despite domestic violence, although the appellant’s claim was not accepted by the respondent as credible. The judge considered the appellant’s claim in considerable detail and in light of the background country information, before reaching findings that the appellant had not established that she was at risk of persecution or serious harm.
17. In the context of a claim which the judge found to be lacking in credibility, any error in not making express findings in relation to the appellant’s claimed conversion is not material as it is more than tolerably clear from the judge’s findings that she would have reached the same conclusion.
18. The judge in the context of not accepting that the appellant would be at risk on return from her family or her husband’s family, relied on the evidence in India: Women fearing gender-based violence, November 2022 and India: actors of Protection, June 2023, noting that India is a designated state under section 94 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, and that ‘there is in general in that state or part of it no serious risk of persecution of persons entitled to reside in that state or part of it’.
19. The respondent before the First-tier Tribunal relied on the CPIN in relation to religious minorities in India April 2024 at paragraphs 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.7.1 which provides clear and unambiguous evidence that the appellant would not be at risk on return as she had claimed was the case before the First-tier Tribunal from the Sikh community and her village “other than her family.”.
20. Although the appellant sought to reargue her case before Upper Tribunal, including claiming for the first time in submissions that it would be dangerous for her particularly if her family found out, that was not the case that she had made before the First-tier Tribunal.
21. Whilst the CPIN religious minorities in India, details that Muslims can experience discrimination the background country information details that Muslims are unlikely to be subject to treatment by the state that is sufficiently serious by its nature and or repetition to amount to persecution or serious harm, with Muslims having freedom to practise their faith and access to education or employment.
22. In the context of an appellant whose claims of risk on return the judge found to be unsupported and whose evidence of a claimed relationship with Mr Liaqat the judge found to be ‘unconvincing’ and which was also rejected, and in the context of the background country information, the judge’s conclusion that the appellant was not at risk on return would have been the same in relation to the claimed conversion, even if the conversion were accepted. No material error is made out in respect of Ground 1.
Ground 2
23. The judge considered Article 8 in detail from [29] to [34] of the decision, concluding that the appellant had not established that there was a genuine and subsisting relationship between the appellant and her claimed partner, Mr Liaqat, having heard oral evidence and not finding this credible. The judge considered in the alternative, whether or not the appellant and her partner would have difficulties in moving to India but was satisfied that whilst there may be a degree of hardship this would not be insurmountable. The judge found that the Immigration Rules were not met and considered Article 8 outside of the Immigration Rules.
24. The judge at paragraph [35], considered the appellant’s private life and was entitled to find as she did, that there was very limited evidence of private life in the appellant’s witness statement. The judge accepted that the appellant may have developed friendships since her arrival in September 2020, although she did not refer to such friendships, other than with Mr Liaqat.
25. In any event, the judge considered there was some private life, took into consideration Section 117B(4) and that the appellant had been in the UK unlawfully since 2022 and placed little weight on her private life. Whilst the judge’s consideration of the appellant’s private life was brief, it was adequate and open to her on the basis of the limited evidence before the First-tier Tribunal in respect of private life. Ground 2 is not made out.
Decision
(1) The making of the decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve the making of an error on a point of law.
(2) I do not set aside the decision.
M M Hutchinson

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

14 May 2025