OA053772013

This is an appeal by the Entry Clearance Officer (ECO). However, for the purposes of this decision, I shall refer to the ECO as the respondent and Mr Kumarawaduge as the appellant, reflecting their positions as they were in the appeal before the First-tier Tribunal.

The appellant appealed against that decision and enclosed further evidence with his grounds of appeal, including his wife�s bank statements, P60 and payslips and a letter from her employer.

The application was then reviewed by an Entry Clearance Manager (ECM) who conceded, in the light of the additional payslip submitted, that the requirements of paragraph 2(a) of FM-SE had been met. However the ECM maintained the refusal decision on the grounds that the bank statements did not correspond to the same period as the payslips and that they were not in the correct format since they were online statements.

Permission to appeal against that decision was sought by the respondent on the grounds that the judge had failed to explain how the payslips complied with the rules of specified evidence and what level of gross income was received by the sponsor; and that he had failed to explain how the principles in MM applied to the appellant.

At the hearing Mr Avery agreed that he was in some difficulty in supporting the grounds of appeal on the basis upon which they had been drafted. He conceded that the ECM was wrong in considering that the bank statements did not cover the same period as the payslips: they clearly did. He was unable to confirm whether or not the bank statements in the appellant�s appeal bundle had been before the ECM although he accepted that the judge�s determination confirmed that it had been agreed that the statements in the respective appeal bundles corresponded with each other.