OA199272013

This is an appeal against a determination of First-tier Tribunal Judge Widdup, promulgated on 14 th November 2014, following a hearing at Hatton Cross on 3 rd November 2014. In the determination, the judge dismissed the appeal of Md Abdur Mohon. The Appellant subsequently applied for, and was granted, permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal, and thus the matter comes before me.

The Appellant is a male, a citizen of Bangladesh, who was born on 5 th January 1982. He appeals against the decision of the Respondent Entry Clearance Officer dated 26 th September 2013, refusing his application to join his wife, Mrs Lutfa Begum, whom he married in Bangladesh on 12 th April 2012, and who is a British citizen, the refusal being on the basis that the marriage was not genuine and subsisting and that Mrs Begum could not show that she earned at least £18,600 per annum as required by the Immigration Rules.

The Appellant's claim is that his wife, Mrs Lutfa Begum, earned the requisite amount because she worked at the Sonali Supermarket and provided her pay slips.

The judge took the view that the Appellant and the Sponsor were genuinely married in a subsisting relationship, on a balance of probabilities, (see paragraph 39), but there was an issue about the Appellant being able to satisfy the financial requirement test, because of the manner in which his sponsoring wife had been working in the UK.

The Appellant's wife was not being provided with holiday pay, and the judge held that, "I find the employer is, or may be, acting unlawfully so far as this employment is concerned" (see paragraph 26) given that the Sponsor's evidence was that she worked several days each month on an overtime basis but did not get paid for it.