Dilpreet Singh v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

Under the Graduate Route, successful completion of the relevant course and sponsor notification to the Home Office by the application date are separate mandatory requirements. Guidance allowing a caseworker to contact the sponsor where notification is absent permits confirmation of completion by that date; it cannot allow completion after the application or contradict the Immigration Rules. In the points-based system, procedural fairness does not generally require the applicant to be warned or invited to make representations where the sponsor is responsible for supplying the relevant information and the decision involves no adverse issue requiring the applicant’s response. An applicant is not required to provide separate completion evidence where the scheme assigns that function to the sponsor. Evidential flexibility does not apply to the sponsor’s failure to notify.

These conjoined appeals concerned refusals of applications under the Graduate Route. Mr Singh had completed his course, but his sponsor had not notified the Home Office by the date of application and later explained that he was on financial hold. Mrs Barai varied an in-time fee waiver application into a Graduate Route application one day before her course completion was approved; her sponsor notified the Home Office later.

The Upper Tribunal refused permission for judicial review in both cases. The Court of Appeal considered whether procedural fairness required further enquiries of the applicants, whether GR 4.2 and GR 4.3 imposed separate requirements, whether the guidance was inconsistent with those Rules, and whether the evidential flexibility provisions applied.

Both appeals were dismissed.

1. Procedural fairness. Whether fairness requires an opportunity to make representations depends on the facts and context, including the nature of the legal and administrative system. The adverse effect of a decision is not, by itself, sufficient. The points-based system is designed to process high volumes of applications using clear and objective criteria. Fairness supplements that system but must not substantially undermine its predictability and efficiency. Where the Rules place responsibility on the sponsor to provide information and the sponsor fails to do so, there was no issue requiring the applicants’ response before refusal. R (Topadar) v SSHD [2020] EWCA Civ 1525, EK (Ivory Coast) v SSHD [2014] EWCA Civ 1517 and R (Taj) v SSHD [2021] EWCA Civ 19 were applied. Pathan v SSHD [2020] 1 WLR 4506 was distinguishable because it involved direct intervention by the Secretary of State which invalidated an apparently valid certificate.
2. Construction of the Rules. GR 4.2 and GR 4.3 of the Immigration Rules establish two discrete, mandatory criteria. The applicant must have successfully completed the qualifying course, and the sponsor must have notified the Home Office of that completion by the date of application. It follows that the course must have been successfully completed before that date. The guidance cannot be interpreted to permit notification after the application where completion itself occurred later.
3. Effect of the guidance. The sponsor-notification guidance gives the sponsor another opportunity to demonstrate that the course was completed by the application date. It does not create a free-standing obligation on the applicant to provide completion evidence or displace GR 4.3. Mr Singh’s sponsor’s response that he was on financial hold could reasonably be understood as meaning that he had not successfully completed the course, or at least did not confirm completion. The Secretary of State was entitled to rely on that response and refuse the application.
4. Evidence and administrative review. The application process did not require Mr Singh to upload evidence of successful completion. His failure to provide such evidence was therefore not an error or omission within the Graduate Route guidance or the Evidential Flexibility policy. That policy did not apply to the sponsor’s failure to notify, and there was no failure within AR 3.3(e) of the Immigration Rules. In Mrs Barai’s case, completion occurred after the application date, making notification by that date impossible. There was no material tension between the Rule and the guidance.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division). Permission to appeal was granted in each case. The court dismissed both appeals in [2026] EWCA Civ 766.
2. Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber). Permission for judicial review was refused in Mr Singh’s case by UTJ Loughran and in the Barais’ case by UTJ Meah. The Barais’ costs order was affirmed.