Mohamed Riyas Abdul Razak, R (on the application of) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

For the Tier 4 maintenance requirement in paragraph 1A(h) of Appendix C to the Immigration Rules, the relevant end date is the date of the closing balance shown by the most recent specified document. It is not simply the date on which that document was printed. A verified bank printout may be admissible as a bank statement, but cannot evidence a balance at its printing date unless it purports to do so.

A public-law error in seeking further evidence is immaterial where correcting it could not have enabled the applicant to meet the Rules. An Article 8 claim not raised in the application, and unsupported by exceptional or compelling circumstances, did not require consideration in this case.

The applicant sought judicial review of the Secretary of State’s refusal of his out-of-time application for leave to remain as a Tier 4 student. The refusal was based, among other matters, on his failure to demonstrate the required maintenance funds for a consecutive 28-day period.

The Secretary of State had mistakenly sent a request for original documents to the applicant’s former address. The central issue was whether a Lloyds Bank printout dated 1 October 2012 permitted the 28-day period to be calculated from that printing date, rather than from the last balance shown on 24 September 2012. The applicant also contended that his Article 8 rights should have been considered although he had not raised them in his application.

1. Claim dismissed. The applicant could not meet the maintenance requirement in paragraph 1A(h) of Appendix C to the Immigration Rules.
2. The authenticated Lloyds printout was admissible as evidence as if it were a bank statement. However, its date of 1 October 2012 was the date of printing. It did not state the balance on that date or represent that the balance shown on 24 September had remained unchanged. The relevant closing-balance date was therefore 24 September 2012, the last date shown in the account data. Calculating the required 28-day period from that date left the applicant below the required funds threshold.
3. The Secretary of State’s error in sending the January 2013 request for original documents to the wrong address was not material. Even had the applicant received it and supplied the original statement sought, the copy statement showed insufficient funds by itself. A later Hatton Bank statement had also been supplied after the decision and could not have been considered under evidential flexibility.
4. The Article 8 ground failed. Article 8 had not been raised in the original application, and the applicant had identified no exceptional or compelling circumstances outside the Rules. The proposed reliance on private life to continue studies did not engage the guidance in Patel v SSHD [2013] UKSC 72 and Nasim and others (Article 8) [2014] UKUT 00025 (IAC). In any event, no removal decision had been made, making reliance on Article 8 premature.
5. Permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal was refused. Costs were reserved for short written submissions and summary assessment on the papers.

• Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber): judicial review claim dismissed; permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal refused.
• Permission stage: permission for judicial review was refused on the papers by a Deputy High Court Judge on 5 March 2014, but granted after an oral hearing by an Upper Tribunal Judge on 19 June 2014, with permission to amend the grounds.