Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-001766

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/58878/2023
LP/06905/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 7 November 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE OWENS

Between

SA
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Saeed, Counsel, instructed by Amman Solicitors Advocates
For the Respondent: Ms Lecointe, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 24 September 2025

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The appellant appeals with permission against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal dated 24 February 2025 dismissing her appeal against the respondent’s decision dated 10 October 2025 to refuse her protection and human rights claim.
2. The appellant is now a 71 year old Indian national who arrived in the UK on 24 May 2018 as a visitor. She subsequently made a human rights application which was refused and certified. She then claimed asylum on 6 June 2022. She asserts that she would be at risk on return to India because she fears that she would be killed by individuals who follow the Hindutva and RSS ideology promoted by the BJP party and the ruling Modi government because she is a Muslim and identifiable as such because she wears the hijab. She also asserts that she has family life in the UK with her son, daughter in law and grandchildren and that she faces very significant obstacles to integration to India because of her lack of close family, her Islamic faith and her medical problems including heart problems, asthma, anxiety and depression.
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal
3. The judge found that whilst in India the appellant had never been threatened or had any problems as a result of being a Muslim woman and nor had her husband when he was alive. The judge at [27] found this to be a “wholly unmeritorious and false application for asylum which had been brought solely to delay the appellant’s return to India”. The judge found that the family in the UK wished the appellant to remain in the UK because it was convenient for the family. The judge found the claim to be entirely without merit. The judge made negative credibility findings further to s 8(5) of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act 2004. The judge found that there was sufficiency of protection for the appellant. The judge went on to find that the appellant is able to attend to her own daily living needs, has her own home to return to and has other family members in India. The judge found that her relationship with her son and daughter in law did not amount to family life pursuant to article 8 ECHR. The judge found that the appellant can access health care in India, can seek assistance and ultimately that the appellant’s removal from the UK would not result in any unjustifiably harsh consequences and that she can return to India to apply for entry clearance under the adult dependent relative rules.
The grounds of appeal
(1) The judge failed to take into account material evidence.
The judge failed to have regard to the expert evidence provided by Dr Holden which addressed several of the issues in the appeal. The skeleton argument referenced the report. The conclusions of the report were material to the issues to be determined by the judge. The failure to take into account the report undermines the entirety of the judge’s findings of fact.
(2) The judge erred in his consideration of internal light and state protection
These findings were also infected by the failure to take into account Dr Holden’s report.
(3) The judge engaged in speculation/failure to take into account evidence
The judge found that there were other extended family members living in India who are capable of visiting her and providing additional support despite no concession being made by the appellant in this respect. Further her evidence in her asylum interview was that family members had been asked to assist but had refused. The appellant was not cross examined on this point in the hearing and this point was not relied on in the refusal decision.
(4) The judge erred in his assessment of family life.
The judge failed to give adequate reasons why the appellant and her family members in the UK did not meet the Kugathas test and did not take medical or other evidence into account.
(5) The judge erred when finding that there would not be very significant obstacles to the appellant integrating into life in India
The judge erred by failing to take into account Dr Holden’s report and the appellant’s evidence that her family members are not able to assist her.
4. Permission to appeal was granted on all grounds on 17 April 2025 by a judge of the First-tier Tribunal.
Rule 24 response
5. The respondent produced a rule 24 response conceding some grounds which I will address in my discussion of the grounds below.
Grounds 1,2 and 5
6. In the rule 24 response, the respondent conceded that ground 1 was made out. The respondent accepted that the judge neither explicitly nor implicitly took into account the expert report by Dr Holden which was in the appeal bundle and referred to in the skeleton argument. The respondent acknowledged that the 54 page report dated 23 September 2023 covered a range of issues including sufficiency of protection, internal relocation and the standing/situation of lone women in India The rule 24 response acknowledged that this error renders the judge’s findings at [31] in respect of internal relocation and insufficiency of protection unsustainable. The rule 24 response also accepted that the error also infected the judge’s findings on very significant obstacles at [36]. The respondent accepted that grounds 2 and 5 are also made out and that the entirety of the findings in respect of these issues should be set aside. I am in agreement that this concession is appropriate. There was a very full and detailed expert before the Tribunal addressing material issues in the appeal which has manifestly been overlooked.
Ground 3
7. The rule 24 response however did not concede ground 3. It was submitted in the rule 24 response and initially reiterated by Ms Lecointe in her oral submissions that the judge did not engage in speculation in respect of the ability of family members to assist her in India and these findings should be viewed in the light of the negative credibility findings which are sustainable.
8. However after a discussion during the hearing, including the recognition that the judge’s errors on the approach to the expert evidence infected his view of the appellant’s credibility, Ms Lecointe indicated that she no longer strongly pursued these arguments, although she did not formally concede that the ground was made out.
9. The judge dealt with the asylum claim first. The judge made strong negative credibility findings, partly based on his view that the appellant had not previously had problems as a Muslim female in India prior to leaving in 2018 and that her fears were based on watching events on TV. I am satisfied that the judge, by failing to take into account Dr Holden’s report, failed to appreciate that in the intervening 6 years since the appellant has arrived in the UK the situation in respect of the Muslim population in India has deteriorated significantly. The appellant’s husband died in 2012. There was evidence in Dr Holden’s report that elderly lone female Muslim women may be at risk. The judge failed to evaluate the claim from the starting point of the background evidence in India as it is for the appellant as a lone Muslim female in 2025 rather than relying on the situation as it was prior to 2018 when she came to the UK. I am satisfied that this impacted on his findings not only on risk but on his findings on the appellant’s credibility as a whole and this error undermines the very strong negative credibility findings made by the judge at [27], [29] and [30].
10. Secondly, the expert report also addresses the obstacles that women in the appellant’s position face in obtaining and accessing medical treatment. Although the evidence provided by the respondent suggests that treatment is available, Dr Holden pointed to the difficulties for the appellant in accessing treatment. Because the judge overlooked this material evidence in Dr Holden’s report, it is not clear what he made of it. He may have decided to give no weight to it, but because he did not address it all, he failed to provide adequate reasons for rejecting the appellant’s evidence in relation to the difficulties she said she would face in India. This fed into the judge’s assessment both of credibility and his assessment of very significant obstacles.
11. Further I am satisfied that the judge speculated that extended family members in India would be able to support the appellant. He did not take into account her evidence that they had been asked to help but had refused and he did not give any reasons for rejecting this evidence if this is what he meant to do.
12. I am satisfied that ground 3 is made out and the error in failing to take into account the report of the Dr Holden is so fundamental that it affects all of the findings, including the negative credibility findings and the findings in respect of family support in India.
Ground 5
13. I am also satisfied that ground 5 is made out in respect of the judge’s finding at [35] that there is no family life between the appellant and her son and daughter-in-law. This is because the judge failed to apply the correct legal test and failed to consider whether there was any “real or effective or committed” support between the appellant and her adult son and his wife. It was not in dispute that that the appellant has been living with her son and his wife and been financially and emotionally supported by them for over six years. The judge did not give adequate reasons for finding that the appellant and the sponsor were living independent lives nor explain why the co-habitation, financial and emotional support did not amount to real or effective or committed support. In carrying out this assessment, the judge took into account immaterial factors such as that the arrangement is a matter of choice (which is of course material to the assessment of proportionality but not to whether family life as a matter of fact exists) and the fact that the appellant has a home in her own country (again a factor relevant to the proportionality assessment but not to the existence of family life).
14. In conclusion, I am satisfied that all five grounds of appeal are made out in respect of the asserted errors and that all five errors are material to the outcome of the appeal.
Disposal
15. The appellant submitted that because the decision was so flawed and no findings could be preserved that the appeal should be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal to be heard de novo. Ms Lecointe indicated that if I was minded to preserve the negative credibility findings the appeal could be retained at the Upper Tribunal. When deciding whether to depart from the general principle that a case will be retained in the Upper Tribunal, I must have regard to Begum (remaking or remittal) Bangladesh [2023] UKUT 00046, and consider the extent of the impact of the findings to be made, as well to the loss to the appellant of losing an opportunity to have an onward appeal. In this appeal I have found that all five grounds are made out and that the errors have infected all of the findings. Having considered these factors I find that the correct disposal is to remit the appeal to the First-tier Tribunal for a fresh hearing before a different judge.
Notice of Decision
1. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal involved the making of an error of law.
2. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal is set aside in its entirety with no findings preserved.
3. The decision is remitted to the First-tier Tribunal for a de novo hearing before a judge other than First-tier Tribunal Judge Traynor.

R J Owens

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

5 November 2025