Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-002683

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/54047/2023
LP/00543/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 5th February 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BLUNDELL

Between

AP
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms S Ferguson, instructed via Direct Public Access
For the Respondent: Ms A Ahmed, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 22 January 2026

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellant and her husband are granted anonymity. No-one shall publish or reveal any information which is likely to lead members of the public to identify them, including their names or address. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court. This order was previously made by UTJ Keith and must continue in force because the appellant is a vulnerable victim of sexual violence.

DECISION AND REASONS
1. By a decision dated 9 September 2025, UTJ Keith set aside the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (Judge Stedman) to allow the appellant’s appeal on Article 8 ECHR grounds. Judge Keith ordered that that aspect of the decision on the appeal would be remade in the Upper Tribunal on a date to be notified. That hearing took place before me on 22 January 2026.
Background
2. The appellant is an Indian national who was born on 6 May 1975. Her husband is also an Indian national. He is dependent upon her claim. The appellant and her husband are of Malayalam ethnicity and are Catholic. They lived in Kerala in the south of India. They have two adult children, a son and a daughter, who live in India.
3. The appellant and her husband entered the United Kingdom as visitors in September 2007. They overstayed upon the expiry of their leave to enter and it is asserted that they have remained in the United Kingdom ever since. The appellant and her husband were served with notices that they were overstayers in 2016 and it seems that unsuccessful efforts to remove them from the United Kingdom were then made.
4. The appellant claimed asylum in March 2022. A short screening interview was administered. The appellant subsequently completed a Preliminary Information Questionnaire (“PIQ”) with the assistance of her representatives at the time. The answers to that form were provided on four pages of A4 which were submitted with it. The appellant stated, in summary, that she feared the Indian authorities on account of her imputed political opinion in favour of Al Mujahideen, a terrorist organisation. She stated that she had formed a relationship with a Muslim man during her time at university. Such interfaith relationships were considered unacceptable, so they kept it a secret. Her family found out in 1994, however, and she was forced to marry her current husband in 1994. Years later, she and the Muslim man resumed their contact, but only as friends. She assisted him financially on occasion and in 2005 she assisted him by using her contacts in Kerala to find accommodation for one of his friends.
5. Shortly after she had assisted her friend in that way, she was arrested by the Indian authorities and detained for months, during which time she suffered horrendous ill-treatment, including rape. She was suspected of assisting the Muslim man, who was himself suspected of belonging to Al Mujahideen. She said that she was released after the intervention of the local MP and the payment of a bribe. The same politician assisted with arranging for the appellant and her husband to leave India. The appellant stated that the authorities had been to her family home and had threatened her parents and her children, causing her parents to relocate her children for their safety. She stated that she was not aware of their whereabouts.
6. The appellant stated in the PIQ that she suffered from depression, anxiety and stress and that she had been prescribed medication for these conditions. She had been suffering from suicidal ideation. Her mental health was deteriorating by the day. She also suffered from bouts of anal bleeding as a result of the ill-treatment she had suffered in detention.
7. The appellant provided further details of her asylum claim when she had a substantive interview in April 2023. In addition to the account she had given in the PIQ, she stated that she was at risk from a loan shark who had loaned her family a significant amount of money to facilitate her release from detention and her journey to the UK. She said that her parents had discontinued contact with her at the end of 2022 because of the constant harassment they were experiencing.
8. The respondent refused asylum on 26 June 2023. She did not accept that the appellant’s account was true. She did not consider that the return of the appellant or her husband would be in breach of the ECHR because there would be treatment for the mental health conditions she was experiencing.
The Appeal to the First-tier Tribunal
9. The appellant appealed to the First-tier Tribunal and her appeal was heard by Judge Stedman. The appellant was represented by counsel, the respondent by a Presenting Officer. The judge heard evidence from the appellant and submissions before reserving his decision.
10. In his reserved decision, the judge found that the asylum claim was not a coherent claim which could be relied upon: [19]. He gave a number of reasons for that finding at [20]-[31]. He accepted, however, that she had suffered the most violent treatment meted out to her by the authorities while she was in detention: [40]. Reconciling those two conclusions at [42], the judge stated that the reasons that the appellant had given for her detention in India were not credible. At [43], he said this:
In my view, the appellant has essentially put together a story which provides some justification (perhaps for her own sanity) as to why she was detained and treated the way that she was. In other words, I do not know if the appellant is deliberately not telling the truth or is simply not being truthful to herself, but the story told is not one which withstands scrutiny.
11. The judge concluded in relation to the asylum claim that the appellant had been detained and seriously ill-treated by the Indian authorities “for some reason which I cannot attribute to a Convention reason”: [44]. He did not accept that she was reasonably likely to be of any interest to the authorities, although he accepted that she had been released on payment of a bribe: [45-[46]. He also did not accept, at [47], that she would be at risk from loan sharks.
12. The judge then turned to the ground of appeal under the Human Rights Act 1998. He considered that claim with reference to the Immigration Rules. At [48]-[56], he concluded that the appellant would experience very significant obstacles to reintegration, such that she satisfied the requirement in paragraph 276ADE(1)(vi) of the Immigration Rules. In reaching that conclusion, the judge attached weight to the length of time that the appellant had spent in the UK [51]; the appellant’s subjective fear of return, mental health problems and associated difficulties [52]-[53]; and the lack of support from the appellant’s husband, who had not given written or oral evidence for the appeal [54]. The judge drew his conclusions together at in the following way:
[55] This has not been an easy decision to reach, because whilst the issue of very significant obstacles is essentially a multi-dimensional task, this appellant’s case for not returning is essentially based on her mental health and her ability to be able to support herself and form relations within society there - which she is familiar with but which she has been very removed from for a long time.
[56] Coupled with that is her background of very serious trauma and the fact that she has no family or other support to be able to rely on. Therefore, looking at the evidence of a whole I find that they difficulties that the appellant would personally face on return go beyond mere hardship or inconvenience but taken together amount to very significant obstacles.
The Appeal to the Upper Tribunal
13. The appellant did not appeal against the dismissal of her appeal on asylum grounds. The respondent did appeal against the decision to allow the appeal on human rights grounds. She submitted that the judge had failed to give adequate reasons for his findings and had failed to take material matters into account.
14. In his decision from September 2025, Judge Keith upheld the respondent’s appeal. He found that the judge had erred in assuming that the appellant would not receive support from her husband on return to India because the judge knew only that the husband had not given evidence: [24]-[25]. At [26], Judge Keith found that the judge had failed to explain the precise nature of his findings in relation to the absence of other family support in India. Judge Keith did not accept that the respondent’s challenge to the judge’s assessment of the applicant’s mental health was made out: [27]. In summary, however, he was persuaded that the judge had failed to give adequate reasons as the likely support which the appellant would receive from her husband and their families on return to India.
15. Judge Keith therefore set aside the judge’s decision to allow the appeal on human rights grounds. He noted that there was no appeal against the dismissal of the appeal on asylum grounds. He preserved that conclusion, although he also preserved the judge’s acceptance that the appellant had been the victim of rape and beatings whilst in detention in India: [29]. For reasons he gave at [30] et seq, Judge Keith was satisfied that the appropriate relief was to retain the matter in the Upper Tribunal for the decision on the human rights ground to be remade after a further hearing.
The Resumed Hearing
16. Ms Ferguson appeared for the appellant at the resumed hearing, as she did before Judge Keith. Ms Ahmed appeared for the respondent. She has not previously appeared in this case.
17. Ms Ferguson was instructed by the Direct Public Access scheme and I was concerned to ensure that I had all the papers to which she wished to refer. I am grateful to her for clarifying at the outset of the hearing that she would be referring to: the appellant’s original bundle (215 pages); the bundle compiled by the respondent for the hearing before Judge Keith (353 pages); her skeleton argument for a resumed hearing in October which had been adjourned; Ms Ahmed’s skeleton argument; a letter from the appellant’s GP surgery dated 21 November 2025; and some additional medical evidence which she had only in hard copy but would provide electronically after the hearing. (I record that Ms Ferguson did indeed provide that material electronically later in the day. That material had been seen by Ms Ahmed at the hearing and she had no objection to its admission.)
18. I asked Ms Ahmed whether she was content that the appellant ought to be treated as a vulnerable witness in light of her past experiences and her mental health problems. She was content that I should do so. Ms Ferguson made no application for any reasonable adjustments. I checked periodically whether the appellant was able to continue giving evidence. She confirmed that her preference was to continue and complete her evidence rather than having a break.
19. The appellant adopted the two statements she has made in these proceedings before being cross examined by Ms Ahmed. I asked a handful of clarificatory questions and Ms Ferguson asked five questions in re-examination.
Submissions
20. Ms Ahmed relied on the refusal letter, the review undertaken in the FtT and the skeleton argument she had prepared for the resumed hearing. She submitted that the appellant was not a reliable witness. Her asylum claim had been rejected for good and proper reason and there were additional difficulties with the evidence she had given in relation to what awaited her in India. It was not credible that she had no contact with her adult children or her mother and there was no reason that she and her husband could not support each other on return. He had family in India also. Whilst the appellant suffered from some mental health problems, there was a paucity of recent evidence and the background material showed in any event that treatment would be available for the appellant and her husband (who has suffered a stroke and has some left-side paralysis). It was not accepted that the appellant had a genuine subjective fear of returning to India but even if she did it was not well-founded. Her religion and her family were protective mechanisms for her mental health problems and would prevent her committing suicide. There were no very significant obstacles and there was nothing which could outweigh the cogent public interest in the removal of the appellant and her husband.
21. Ms Ferguson relied on her skeleton argument and submitted that much of the applicant’s account had been accepted by the FtT. It had been accepted that she was detained and horrifically ill-treated for months before being released on payment of a bribe. The judge did not accept the account that the appellant had been suspected of involvement with a Pakistani terrorist organisation or that she was of any ongoing interest to the authorities, but it was clear that the appellant would be terrified of returning to India. Ms Ahmed submitted that the appellant’s account might not be fully coherent but the reasons for that were to be found in the medical report from Freedom From Torture (“FFT”).
22. Ms Ferguson submitted that the appellant had given a consistent and plausible account of the lack of contact with her mother and her children. She had ceased making contact with the family because they preferred it that way as a result of the interfaith relationship in the past, the problems which resulted from her detention, and the conservative culture in which they lived. It was for those reasons that the FtT had concluded that the appellant’s family life was “barely existing”. (Ms Ahmed interjected at this point to note that this finding had been overturned by UTJ Keith.) Whilst Ms Ferguson accepted that, she noted that the appellant had consistently said that she was upset by the lack of contact with her family and that it was this which had caused her to make an attempt on her own life in 2019.
23. I invited Ms Ferguson to set out what she said would be the obstacles to the appellant’s re-integration on return to India. She provided the following factors:
(i) The appellant’s history and the subsisting mental health problems as a result;
(ii) The stigmatisation of mental health problems and the lack of treatment;
(iii) The absence of meaningful support from her husband as a result of his stroke;
(iv) The lack of other family support;
(v) Difficulties in either of them finding work as a result of the above;
(vi) The appellant has some form of blunt trauma to the head and requires further investigation.
24. Cumulatively, Ms Ferguson submitted that there would be very significant obstacles to integration as a result of these factors even if the appellant and her husband returned together.
25. I invited Ms Ferguson to address me on Article 8 ECHR outside the Rules. She accepted that most of her submissions fell within the scope of paragraph 276ADE(1)(vi) of the Rules but she did submit that one additional factor was to be found in the fact that the appellant is nearing the point at which she has been in the UK for 20 years continuously. She submitted that the public interest did not militate powerfully against the appellant because the reason that she had delayed in claiming asylum was her fear of returning to India.
26. I reserved my decision at the end of Ms Ferguson’s submissions.
Analysis
27. I remind myself that this is a case in which certain of the First-tier Tribunal’s findings have been preserved. It is for that reason that I have set out those findings in some detail above, together with the directions made by UTJ Keith at the first hearing in the Upper Tribunal.
28. It is clear that the appellant was subjected to the most brutal treatment at the hands of the Indian police force in 2007. She suffered beatings and torture, including vaginal and anal rape, over the course of a number of months. As Judge Stedman found, the appellant’s claim to have been subjected to such treatment is supported by the medico-legal report from Freedom From Torture (“FFT”) dated 24 September 2024. That report details the scarring on the appellant’s body as a result of her ill-treatment. It also details the mental health problems from which she suffers as a result of her ordeal. The doctor particularly details PTSD and depression but at [109] and [132] we also find reference to a possible head trauma “compounding the memory impairment associated with depression and PTSD” and sleep deprivation which has also been shown to “cause significant cognitive impairment”.
29. In evaluating the appellant’s evidence, I have taken careful account of the FFT report, and of the statement made by Mr Mowlana, a caseworker at the appellant’s former solicitors. He documented in his statement before the FtT his concern about the appellant and her inability to provide him with a coherent account for the purposes of compiling her statement. These concerns are relevant not only to the conduct of the hearing but also to my evaluation of the appellant’s evidence, for the reasons set out at [15] of the Joint Presidential Guidance on Vulnerable Witnesses (No 2 of 2010):
The decision should record whether the Tribunal has concluded the appellant (or a witness) is a child, vulnerable or sensitive, the effect the Tribunal considered the identified vulnerability had in assessing the evidence before it and thus whether the Tribunal was satisfied whether the appellant had established his or her case to the relevant standard of proof. In asylum appeals, weight should be given to objective indications of risk rather than necessarily to a state of mind.
30. It is in light of the preserved findings and the Joint Presidential Guidance that I turn to consider the only major area of disagreement between the parties: the appellant’s level of contact with her family. The appellant maintains, as I have already mentioned, that her father is dead and that the remaining family, including her mother and her adult children, really want nothing to do with her because of the risk she has brought to their door: [66] of her witness statement before the FtT refers. Ms Ahmed makes no submissions in respect of the father’s death but maintains that the remainder of the assertion is untrue. I consider her to have proper justification for that submission, for the following reasons.
31. The FtT found that there was no continuing interest from the Indian state or the moneylender from whom the appellant is said to have borrowed a significant sum of money. There was no challenge to those findings, which cast significant doubt on the appellant’s assertions that her mother and her adult children want nothing to do with her and that her mother relocated in order to avoid constant threats. That ongoing interest having been rejected, the basis on which the appellant claims to have been disowned by the family falls away. I accept Ms Ahmed’s submission in that regard.
32. There has been some inconsistency in the appellant’s evidence about how her family arranged for her to be released from detention in 2007. In her written account, she stated that a politician had brokered her release at the request of her family, whereas she told the judge of the First-tier Tribunal that a lawyer had been instructed to make the necessary arrangements. That was one of the reasons that he considered her asylum narrative not to be entirely true.
33. The judge was also concerned by the appellant’s ability to obtain her father’s death certificate if her family were no longer in regular contact with her. I note that the appellant’s account is that she has no contact with her children, whereas she has irregular contact with her mother, which she considers not to be “meaningful”. The judge recorded at [25] that the appellant had told him that her mother had sent the death certificate to her, and he considered that to sit uneasily with the claim that they were only in irregular and sporadic contact.
34. Ms Ahmed asked further questions on this subject at the start of cross-examination. The appellant said that her friend Jothi had requested the death certificate from the appellant’s mother when she went to India. Ms Ahmed suggested to her that this was not what she had said in the FtT. The appellant responded that this was what she had said in the FtT; that the certificate was requested by her friend and then it was sent by her mother to her friend’s address.
35. I am not able to reconcile the account summarised at [25] of the FtT’’s decision and that which was given to me. On the one hand the death certificate was sent to the appellant, on the other it was sent to her friend. Whilst I have borne in mind the injunction at [15] of the Joint Presidential Guidance Note and the terms of the FFT report, I regret to say that I formed the impression that this change in the appellant’s evidence was not attributable to her mental health problems. I considered it more likely that the appellant was attempting to distance herself from her mother by suggesting that the whole transaction surrounding the birth certificate did not involve her.
36. I also considered it odd that the appellant’s friend had been able to request the death certificate from the appellant’s mother when she was in India, whereas the appellant continues to maintain that she does not know where her mother (or her children) live. If, as the appellant claimed before me, Jothi was able to see the appellant’s mother when she went to India, I do not understand why the appellant is said to have no idea where her mother lives. I note also that the appellant’s father’s death certificate (dated 28 January 2024) shows that his place of death and his permanent address were given as Mosco Nagar of the Titanium Post Office in Thiruvananthapuram, which is the same village as the appellant identified in section 4 of the PIQ which she completed with the assistance of her representatives in 2022.
37. There are similar difficulties with the appellant’s account that she has lost contact with her children. That was the account she gave in the PIQ which she completed in 2022. She said that her son and her daughter were “location unknown” but when she was asked about her daughter’s whereabouts in the asylum interview in April 2023, she said that she was still in their home town of Thiruvananthapuram.
38. During cross-examination, when Ms Ahmed asked the appellant about her daughter’s location, she said that she had moved away from Thiruvananthapuram after she got married but that sits uneasily with the account she gave before, of her daughter marrying in 2019 and continuing to live in Thiruvananthapuram until 2023. Ms Ahmed put the difference to the appellant. She said that her friend Jothi had been to India and had seen her mother, who had said that her daughter had moved away. The appellant said that she was sure of this. But the appellant went on to say that she knew next to nothing about the rest of the children’s lives. She did not know about their studies or their work. I regret to say that the impression I gained was that the appellant was trying to reinforce the narrative that she did not know her children’s location, whereas that was quite difficult to reconcile with the idea that Jothi had been able to have a conversation with the appellant’s mother about the children.
39. Although I took careful account of the medical evidence, I did not accept that the appellant was telling the truth about her loss of contact with her mother and her children. I consider it more likely that she is in regular contact with them, as Ms Ahmed suggested, and that they remain in Thiruvananthapuram. I conclude that it was the appellant who was able to obtain her father’s death certificate from her mother, and that the claim that it was Jothy who made contact with her was a fabrication, designed to reinforce the idea that the family had been riven apart as a result of the adverse interest in the appellant (which was rejected by the FtT in any event). It is notable that Jothi was not available to give evidence before me, and that there is no statement from her confirming the appellant’s version of events.
40. The appellant stated that she has an older brother and sister in India but that they have ceased all contact with her for the same reasons: “they do not even enquire whether we are dead or alive”, she said. She said that her brother is a driver and her sister is a housewife. I do not accept that the appellant’s brother and sister have ceased contact with her for the reasons above.
41. In the circumstances, I do not accept that the appellant has been largely excommunicated by her family in the manner suggested. I consider it more likely that she remains in contact with them and that she and her husband could turn to them for some assistance on return to India.
42. Ms Ahmed also asked the appellant about her husband’s family. She stated that her husband has a brother in India. Asked why they could not turn to him for assistance on return to India, the appellant stated merely that her husband’s brother does “labour work”, which I took to mean that he was not in a financial position to take them in and support them. There is no other evidence in support of that claim, however, and I reject it in light of the other concerns I have expressed about the credibility of the appellant’s account. On the evidence before me, I do not accept that the appellant’s brother-in-law would be unable or unwilling to assist them on return to India.
43. Having made those findings of primary fact, which supplement those made by the FtT, I turn to Ms Ferguson’s submission that there are very significant obstacles to the appellant’s reintegration to India after her time in the United Kingdom. I recall that the necessary assessment is a broad evaluative one, and I am grateful to the parties for their references in the skeleton arguments to the judgments in SSHD v Kamara [2016] EWCA Civ 813; [2016] 4 WLR 152, Parveen v SSHD [2018] EWCA Civ 932 and NC v SSHD [2023] EWCA Civ 1379.
44. Like the judge in the FtT, I accept that the appellant was detained and ill-treated in the most severe and degrading fashion for months. I also accept all that is said in the medical evidence, and particularly the FFT report, about her mental state. It is clear that she remains deeply traumatised by her past, as one might expect, and I accept Ms Ferguson’s submission that she continues to have a subjective fear of returning to India as a result. I note also what was said at [109] of the FFT report concerning the possibility that the appellant’s cognitive issues might be attributable to a traumatic brain injury in detention. Ms Ahmed, I should note, did not attempt to gainsay the report. I must therefore take particular care to assess the ways in which and the extent to which the subjective fear will or might impede re-integration: NC v SSHD, at [25]. In my judgment, the appellant is likely at first to be reluctant to wish to leave the house as a result of her fear. With the support of her family and with the appropriate medication, however, she will come to realise that there is no extant threat and will be able in time to resume a normal life of the sort contemplated at [14] of SSHD v Kamara.
45. Ms Ferguson submitted that mental health problems are stigmatised and that the appellant would be unable to secure effective treatment for the same. I accept that mental health problems continue to be stigmatised in India, since that is clear from the background material compiled by the respondent: paragraph 15.4 of the respondent’s Medical and Healthcare Provision CPIN of April 2023 refers. I accept that the stigmatisation of the appellant’s mental health problems will operate as a further obstacle to her re-integration to India.
46. The same report speaks to the general inadequacy of mental healthcare in India and particularly to the absence of a suitable number of trained mental health care professionals. There is reference to there being only one psychiatrist to every 100,000 individuals, for example. Ms Ahmed asked the appellant about her current mental health treatment. It is clear that she is not in receipt of any counselling or talking therapy; her treatment is confined to tablets which are prescribed on the NHS. In the FFT report she gave an account of having been prescribed Sertraline but this having been changed to Mirtazapine and Zopiclone. Before me, she was not sure of the names of the drugs she takes.
47. Ms Ahmed suggested to the appellant that she would be able to get the same drugs in India. The appellant stated that that was possibly so, but that she was not staying in the United Kingdom for medication. I note that the CPIN states at 15.3 that the researchers were “unable to find information about the availability of drugs used to treat mental illnesses and their costs, from the sources used and consulted”. The burden is on the appellant to show that there will be very significant obstacles to her re-integration, and she has failed to show that the common drugs she takes for her mental health problems will be unavailable in India.
48. Ms Ferguson submitted orally and in writing that the appellant would be so overwrought with fear that she would be unable to access any treatment. She relied in that regard on the observations of Sedley LJ in Y & Anor v SSHD [2009] EWCA Civ 362; [2009] HRLR 22, and in particular what was said at [47], about the likelihood of such a person “venturing into any proximity with officialdom”. At the end of that paragraph, Sedley LJ emphasised that the “subjective reality of fear has to be given its full – and sometimes overwhelming – weight.” I do not consider that the evidence places the appellant in the category of a person who would be so terrified of return that she would not, once in India, be able to obtain the tablets she requires with the assistance of her family. Dr Shortall’s excellent report does not support that submission, whereas the report before the Court of Appeal in Y & Z stated expressly that the first appellant would not be able to seek or access treatment in Sri Lanka as a result of his mental health. It was that, and the absence of any family support, which caused Sedley LJ to decide as he did at [61] (Arden and Moses LJJ agreed). The medical evidence in this case does not go that far. Dr Shortall expressed some concern at [117] about the appellant’s ability to seek help in India but that concern was expressed at a time when there was no reason to doubt that the appellant would be at risk on return to India, and without reference to the family support which would, on my findings, be available.
49. I note that the FFT report also expressed concern about the likelihood of the appellant making an attempt on her own life in the event that she was faced with removal; she told Dr Shortall that she would prefer to end her life in the UK rather than return to India. Dr Shortall considered that there was a high risk of suicide attempt in the event that the appellant was notified that she was to be removed to India. Ms Ferguson advanced this as one of the factors which was relevant to the assessment of “very significant obstacles” as well as in relation to Article 8 ECHR. I will accordingly consider it as part of my assessment under the Rules, though it seems to me that it would be more relevant to the wider assessment under the ECHR.
50. Dr Shortall considered the appellant’s situation before the FtT made its findings, and she cannot be criticised for failing to take those findings into account. On any view, however, the fact that the FtT rejected the appellant’s claim that she was still at risk on return to India is relevant to the risk of suicide: J v SSHD [2005] EWCA Civ 629, [2005] Imm AR 409, at [25]-[31]. The appellant would return with her husband and to their families. They will have a support network in India who will be able to reassure the appellant that there is no ongoing risk. Given that relevant precautions against self-harm will be taken in the UK, and given that the appellant will return to family and medication in India, I do not consider there to be a real risk of suicide at any point from notification to implementation of removal directions in this case.
51. The appellant will have support from her family and access to medication upon return to India, both of which will serve to ameliorate the obstacles to integration in the manner contemplated by Whipple LJ at [25]-[26] of NC v SSHD. I think it likely that that support will need to be in place for some time. In relation to the appellant, the reasons for that conclusion will be clear from what I have already said. It is also necessary to consider the circumstances of the appellant’s husband.
52. The appellant’s husband was born in February 1968 and is therefore 57 years old. He suffered a stroke in October last year, necessitating admission to hospital for 25 days. The letter from his GP is dated 21 November 2025. It states that he continues to experience “significant difficulties with both memory and mobility” and that “these impairments have had a substantial effect on his level of independence.” Further detail is given in Dr Tjoakarfa’s letter but those words from the opening sentence capture the position in a nutshell. The GP also reports that he is reliant on his wife for support with daily living and that the “prognosis for recovery remains unclear”. Unsurprisingly, the doctor opines that the appellant’s husband would have difficulty in providing financial support for his wife.
53. Ms Ahmed criticised this evidence on the basis that it was somewhat outdated. I do not consider that to have been a meritorious point; the letter was a little over two months old at the date of the hearing and it clearly documents a situation which was not likely to change with any rapidity. I consider it more likely than not that the appellant’s husband continues to date to experience problems with concentration and mobility as documented in the letter. I do not consider that he is likely in the reasonably foreseeable future to be able to earn a living so as to support himself and his wife on return to India. That said, there is no evidence before me which establishes that he will not be able to receive any rehabilitative treatment which remains necessary following his stroke.
54. The most likely situation, in my judgment, is that the appellant and her husband would return to India and be accommodated by family members on one side or the other of their family. They would remain dependent upon their family members until one or both of them are able to work. I consider it unlikely that the appellant’s husband will work again in the foreseeable future because of his health. As I understand it, the appellant has not worked since she arrived in the UK. She stated at the hearing that she had never been an accountant in India (as recorded screening interview) and that her training was more akin to that of a bookkeeper. She said that she had done some teaching, on a voluntary basis, at a local convent named Little Flower Convent. She seems to have little experience in the world of work, and no recent experience on which to draw in seeking employment. At most, therefore, she might be able to acquire some menial work once her subjective fear and mental health problems have abated, in order to contribute to the household income. I cannot conclude that there is any likelihood of the appellant and her husband being able to live independently of their families in the years to come, however, and I accept that their health conditions give rise to a serious obstacle to their re-integration.
55. I have endeavoured to undertake the broad evaluative judgment which is required by the authorities in deciding whether there would be very significant obstacles to the appellant and her husband’s re-integration to India. There are on any sensible view a number of cogent obstacles, all of which were carefully highlighted by Ms Ferguson in her thorough written and oral submissions. They have been in the UK for a long time and will inevitably have lost touch, to some extent, with the way in which life is carried on in India. That difficulty is enhanced by the health problems which I have considered, by the societal stigmatisation of mental health problems, and by the appellant’s subjective fear of return. Against that, however, I consider that there is likely to be family support from both sides of the family, and that the appellant has not shown that she will be unable to receive suitable medication for her mental health problems. Drawing all of those threads together, and considering the position holistically my conclusion is that the obstacles will be real but that they do not reach the elevated threshold required by paragraph 276ADE(1)(vi) of the Immigration Rules1 because the mitigation ameliorates the difficulties in the ways that I have set out.
56. It is then necessary to consider the position outside the Rules. As I have recorded above, I asked Ms Ferguson how she developed the Article 8 ECHR argument if it could not succeed under paragraph 276ADE(1)(vi).
57. The only additional factor to which she was able to refer was an assertion that the appellant and her husband are approaching the point at which they would be eligible for leave under the 20 year route in Appendix PL 5.1(a): the applicant must have been continuously resident in the UK for more than 20 years. In my judgment, however, that ingredient is incapable of adding anything of substance to the balance sheet. Even assuming that the appellant and her husband have remained in the UK continuously since they arrived in September 2007, they are still some way off satisfying the requirement in the Rules and I very much doubt that it would be appropriate in this context to suggest that the case is properly labelled a “near miss”. In any event, a near miss under the rules cannot provide substance to a human rights case which is otherwise lacking in merit, and Article 8 ECHR is not a general dispensing power: Patel v SSHD [2013] UKSC 72; [ 2014] AC 651, at [56]-[57].
58. Whilst the appellant and her husband must enjoy a private life in the UK as a result of their length of residence and connections to this country, they do not meet the Immigration Rules and there is a cogent public interest in their removal by reference to s117B(1) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. The weight which can properly be attached to their private life is diminished because it accrued at a time when they were in the UK unlawfully and because there are no exceptional features in this case which suffice to displace the normative presumption in s117B(4). In the circumstances, and despite the difficulties which the appellants will experience on return to India, I conclude that the interference proposed by the respondent is a proportionate one.
Notice of Decision
The decision of the FtT having been set aside in part, I remake the decision on the human rights ground of appeal by dismissing it.

Mark Blundell

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

29 January 2026