TS (Pakistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

LORD JUSTICE LAWS: This is a renewed application for permission to appeal against the decision of Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge McWilliam promulgated on 23 April 2013.

The Upper Tribunal overturned the determination of the First-tier Tribunal, ("the FTT") of 11 February 2013 by which the FTT appeared (I will explain my use of that word shortly) to allow the Applicant's appeal against two decisions of the Secretary of State of 12 November 2012. One was to refuse the Applicant's application to vary his leave and the second was to set removal directions.

Permission to appeal to this court was refused on consideration of the papers by Longmore LJ on 3 November 2014. Any such appeal would be a second appeal which I should only allow to go forward if I consider that it raised an important point of principle or practice or there was some other compelling reason for this court to hear the appeal.

The Applicant has not appeared this morning and is not represented. The court has received two letters from him. The first, two days ago, indicated that he wished to withdraw this application. The second, yesterday, made no reference to that previous letter, but asserted that the Applicant was unwell and asked for a five week adjournment. In the circumstances, it seemed to me that very little weight could be attached to what he said in that second letter and I refused the adjournment.

I may add that for reasons I shall explain at once, this application is entirely hopeless and in truth it is no service to the Applicant to postpone its determination any longer.

The Applicant is a Pakistani national born on 17 April 1977 who arrived in the United Kingdom on 23 April 2005 with entry clearance as a student. His last application for an extension of his leave was refused under paragraph 245ZX(c) and (d) of the Immigration Rules on 12 November 2012. Removal directions were set on the same day. On the FTT's findings, it is plain that the refusal to vary the Applicant's leave was correct and inevitable.

The Applicant had produced in support of his application what is called a Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies ("CAS") assigned by an institution called Universal Professional and Vocational College. However, that institution's licence had been revoked by the Home Office.

The Applicant failed to produced a CAS from any other institution. In the absence of a valid CAS, the Applicant could not and did not meet the requirements of the Rules. Hence, his application for extension of leave as a student was rightly refused.

However, the FTT noted that, as I have said, the refusal to vary leave and the removal directions were made simultaneously. Because of the terms of the relevant statutory provisions, that meant that the removal directions were unlawful, but the FTT apparently allowed the Applicant's appeal at large, on the face of it overturning both the proper and inevitable refusal to vary leave and the defective removal directions.

The Upper Tribunal did no more nor less than correct this error. That was their duty. There is no perceptible basis on which the decision of the Upper Tribunal should be subject to an appeal to this court and I will dismiss this application.