WA (Pakistan) & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department

LORD JUSTICE LONGMORE: This is an application by Mr Ahmed for permission to appeal from the Upper Tribunal determination of 28 August 2014. He appears in person. He has submitted grounds of appeal and a skeleton argument of his own making and those documents have been helpful to me in understanding the case.

As it emerges, it is this: that he arrived in the United Kingdom on a student visa with his wife in November 2010 and that visa was valid until 28 December 2011. A son was born in December 2010 and Mr Ahmed was granted an extension to his leave to remain up to, in the end, as it was determined, 25 August 2013. Two days before that, on 23 August, he applied for further leave to take the NQF Level 6 Diploma in Management and Leadership. For that purpose, he had to demonstrate to the Secretary of State that he had £4,900 available to him for a period of 28 days ending no later than 1 month before the date of this application. So that would be 23 July 2013. That was the requirement of Appendix C, Rule 245ZXD of the Immigration Rules. I sympathise with anyone struggling with the Immigration Rules since the way they are drafted must seem almost impenetrable to a person such as Mr Ahmed, but that is the position.

The Home Office refused his application for further leave on the basis that there was no evidence provided of available funds. Mr Ahmed appealed that decision and he said to First-tier Tribunal Judge Miles that he had provided evidence and he produced his Lloyds Bank statements, which did show some availability of funds. But that judge held that the statements showed that there was less than £4,900 available between 2 and 7 July 2013 and so that evidence did not qualify to enable the Home Office to give permission. It was true that further credits had come into the account on 18 July which did bring the sum up to £4,900 but that sum had not been available continuously as required by the Rules for a period of 28 days.

Mr Ahmed had produced a letter of 19 August which did confirm that he had a balance in his account of £21,500 but the judge said that was irrelevant to the state of the account for 28 days ending no later than 1 month before the application.

Mr Ahmed sought permission to appeal and was granted permission to appeal by First-tier Tribunal Judge Saffer on the basis that the letter of 19 August might make more of a difference to his appeal than the First-tier Tribunal had decided.

So there was an appeal to the Upper Tribunal. Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Rimington, in a decision promulgated on 28 August 2014, held that whether one took the correct period of 28 days up to 23 July or, as suggested by Mr Ahmed, up to 19 August, there was still no evidence of £4,900 being continuously in his account because the letter of 19 August only related to that particular day. He therefore held that there was no error of law in the decision of the First-tier Tribunal.

Now Mr Ahmed wishes to appeal that decision and since it is a second appeal he has to show that there is an important point of principle or practice or other compelling reason for permission to appeal to be granted. His argument is that the right inference from the documentation before the tribunals was that between 29 July 2013 and 19 August 2013 there was no movement of the account and that that is a novel issue because no tribunal has yet decided what the status of a document such as the 19 August is.

The difficulty with that argument is, firstly, that as a matter of law the right period to take is up to 23 July, not 19 August and, secondly, that the letter of 19 August confirming the state of the account at that day cannot, as the Upper Tribunal decided, be taken as proof that there had been no movement in the account previous to that date.

So the truth is that the Upper Tribunal was right to refuse permission to appeal. There is no point of law which would persuade this court that the Upper Tribunal was wrong and therefore it would not be right for me to grant permission to appeal in this case. But I take the opportunity to thank Mr Ahmed for the courteous and pleasant way in which he has maintained his application.