Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-002072

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/53192/2021
IA/11712/2021

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 14 November 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE OWENS
and
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE MERRIGAN

Between

SH
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: The appellant appeared in person
For the Respondent: Ms L Clewley, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 5 September 2025

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellant 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. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The appellant, a citizen of Bangladesh, appeals under section 82 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 against the decision (“the decision”) of First-tier Tribunal Judge Khawar (“the judge”). As no anonymity order was made by the judge, but an anonymity order was subsequently made by Upper Tribunal Kamara on 26 June 2025, we do not give the date of the decision herein.
2. We do not consider it necessary to set out the procedural background to this claim in any detail, noting that it is summarised in [3] of the decision. Suffice to say that the appellant arrived in the UK on a student visa in 2008; applied for further leave to remain as a student in 2011; made an application for humanitarian protection under Articles 3 and 8 of the ECHR in 2014; and claimed asylum in 2016.
3. The appellant’s claim for asylum is based on his fear of members of the Jamaat e Islami party who he claims threatened him and his family. He also asserts that politically motivated false allegations have been made against him, resulting in false charges. He claims to have been convicted in his absence as a result of these false charges for the offence of murder.
4. The judge at [67] to [70] of the decision dismissed the appellant’s appeal on asylum grounds, humanitarian protection, and articles 2, 3 and 8 of the ECHR. The judge took as his starting point three previous decisions by the First-tier Tribunal (Judge Herlihy, Judge Monson in 2011 and Judge Khan in 2019) in respect of the appellant’s father’s claim for asylum which was based on the same initial factual matrix. The basis of the father’s claims had differed and the latter two judge’s found the appellant’s father’s claim to have been attacked by the Jamaat – Islami party because of a book he wrote for the War Crimes Tribunal and secular articles on fundamentals to have been fabricated. The judge then went on to consider a Document Verification Report (“DVR”), which although mentioned in the refusal letter was uploaded to the Tribunal the day before the hearing and an expert report provided by the appellant in respect of his court documents. The judge preferred the DVR and made various criticisms of the expert report. Having considered all of the evidence, the judge concluded that the DVR was reliable, the appellant’s documents were unreliable and that the claim for asylum was fabricated.
5. The appellant was represented by a solicitor advocate at the First-tier hearing. His grounds of appeal however were prepared by himself. His initial grounds of appeal assert there was procedural unfairness. Because of the late service of the DVR, he had no time to address this. The grounds also raise other issues in respect of the DVR in that his consent was not obtained and the visit to the police station put him at risk. He also refers to the authority of VT (Article 22 Procedures Directive -confidentiality) Sri Lanka [2017] UKUT 368 (IAC) and the guidance in that decision that verification of police station documents is less persuasive than verification of court documents. After permission was refused by the First-tier Tribunal, he submitted a second set of grounds which also raised the issue of procedural unfairness, improper document verification process, breach of confidentiality, lack of transparency and reliability of the DVR. He also submitted that he had ineffective legal representation at the hearing and that the judge had failed to properly consider the supporting evidence in particular his expert report.
6. Permission was subsequently granted by Upper Tribunal Judge Kamara on 26 June 2025 on the following grounds:
“(2) It is arguable that there is some merit in the appellant’s complaint that he did not sufficient opportunity to address the document verification report which was [sic] did not form part of the respondent’s bundle and was only uploaded on the day prior to the hearing.
(3) Permission is not refused on any ground.”
7. The respondent submitted a rule 24 response opposing the appeal.
8. On 28 August 2025, the appellant emailed the court applying to amend his grounds attaching an undated document entitled “Correct Skeleton Argument” ( “the skeleton”).
9. As the appellant explained in his covering email dated 28 August 2025, the skeleton includes a reformulation of his grounds dated 8 May 2025, now expressed as new Grounds 1 to 6.
10. Ground 4 now specifically argues that the judge’s failure to take into account evidence, including a newspaper article, corroborating the conclusions of the expert report of Dr Ul-Hoque, led to the judge to take a flawed approach to that expert report.
11. Ground 5 essentially states that the judge did not give proper weight to the risks awaiting him in Bangladesh.
12. The skeleton also, however, includes two entirely fresh matters: Grounds 1 and 6. We shall use this new numbering hereafter.
13. The fresh Grounds may be summarised as follows.
Ground 1 - The judge erred in applying Devaseelan without also considering AA (Somalia) v SSHD [2007] EWCA Civ 1040. The appellant asserts that the judge conflates his case with that of his father when his claim was based on different evidence. The judge treated the findings in his father’s appeal as determinative of his claim.
Ground 6- The judge failed to engage with medical evidence that he has a degenerative eye condition that cannot be treated in Bangladesh and, without such treatment as may be obtained in the UK, will inevitably lead to blindness and the judge’s assessment of Article 8 ECHR is flawed.
14. Ms Clewley, representing the respondent, opposed the application to amend the grounds. She submitted apart from its lateness, that permission had not been granted to raise grounds 1 and 6, and the respondent had not had an opportunity to address them in the rule 24 response.
15. We decided to permit the appellant to rely upon the entirety of the skeleton. While it does contain new Grounds 1 and 6, the respondent has been in possession of it for a week; and Ms Clewley on being asked confirmed that she was able to address the new matters raised in oral submissions. In making this decision we took into account that the appellant is unrepresented and the importance of the issue to him.
16. In any event we did not consider the new grounds because we decided that the decision should be set aside on the ground of procedural unfairness for the reasons given below.
17. The full and original DVR, although mentioned in the appellant’s refusal letter, was not uploaded onto the system until the day before the hearing. Until this point the appellant had not had sight of the original full report. This appears to have been as a result of an administrative oversight on the part of the respondent.
18. We agree with Ms Clewley that the appellant was represented and the appellant himself appears to concede that his representative did not request an adjournment.
19. We disregard the appellant’s assertion in ground 2 that his representation was ineffective as the test as to ineffective legal representation is a stringent one as highlighted in (R (Aston) v Nursing and Midwifery Council [2004] EWHC 2368 (Admin) at [10]-[12], R (B) v Hampshire County Council [2004] EWHC 3193 (Admin) at [69]-[70] and Khan v HMRC [2006] EWCA Civ 89 at 54. 11. The appellant has not provided any evidence as to the well-being of the representatives or that any challenges have been brought since then by the appellant against his former representatives for example to the Bar Council or SRA. This ground is not made out.
20. Nevertheless, the fact that the appellant’s representative did not request an adjournment and the fact that he also submitted documents at a late stage is not an answer to this ground. The respondent appears to suggest that the application for an adjournment would not have succeeded in any event. We do not agree.
21. Firstly, we note that there is nothing in the decision at all to indicate that the judge was aware that this important evidence was adduced only the day before the hearing. There is also nothing to indicate that the judge turned his mind at all to whether an adjournment would be appropriate or asked the parties of their view on this. This is a significant omission. The role of the judge was to ensure that the hearing was fair.
22. The test is whether the failure of the judge to even consider an adjournment deprived the party’s right to a fair hearing.
23. In the decision at [48] the first criticism of the judge of the expert report is that he does not make any reference to the DVR filed by the respondent. The judge states: “He has obviously not been shown this document”. It is obvious that the expert could not have been shown this document when it was uploaded so shortly before the hearing. The judge’s reliance on this means that his consideration of the expert report is flawed in any event.
24. The appellant had an expert who had considered his court documents and found them to be reliable. An adjournment would have permitted the expert to address the DVR. In fact the expert report at [33] specifically addresses the fact that police station records in rural/remote areas such as Chattak (where the appellant comes from and the FIR was lodged) have analogue files and ledgers and do not follow administrative protocols. Further, the judge (through no fault of his own we add) was not addressed on the principles in VT and the problems inherent with verifying documents at the police station (where there may be corrupt officials) rather than the courts as well as procedural issues such as consent.
25. This was a claim for asylum and the outcome was of great importance to the appellant. Important evidence was adduced late in the day. In our view the judge’s failure to even contemplate of his own volition whether an adjournment would have been fair and in the interests of justice, and failure to seek the view of the parties on this, renders the appeal hearing unfair and vitiates the entire decision. This is a material error of law and means that the decision must be set aside in its entirety and we are unable to preserve any findings in the decision. The entire matter must be looked at afresh in line with the Practice Direction on remaking and remittal.

Notice of Decision

1. The judge’s decision involved the making of an error of law and is set aside.
2. We do not preserve any findings of the decision.
3. We remit the matter to the First-tier Tribunal to be heard by a different judge.

D. Merrigan

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

14 November 2025