OA079142014

The appellant appealed to the First-tier Tribunal. The judge heard evidence from the appellant's brother, Tarif Khan. There was no Presenting Officer to represent the Secretary of State. Mr Mustafa acted for the appellant and he has done so again before me today.

The judge made findings of fact as follows. First he found, at paragraph 25, that there was no valid marriage between Juad Khan and Afia Begum. He further found, at paragraph 26, that Afia Begum could not reasonably have believed herself to be married to Juad Khan.

"27. If there had been a marriage I would find against the appellant on this point, as plainly the marriage (had there been one) would have been bigamous for Mr Khan, and polygamous for Afia Begum. Afia Begum lives in Bangladesh with the appellant. There is no witness statement from her. The burden of proof is on the appellant. It would not be reasonable to assume that she thought the marriage was valid when she could, but had not, said so.

"34. There is no evidence to link the appellant to Juad Khan other than the fact that the three who are his siblings were granted British citizenship on the basis that he was their father, and that as he is their full sibling, Juad Khan must have been his father too. It is possible, likely even, that the three earlier applications were based on invalid documents such as the false marriage certificate, since the marriage that did not occur was a prerequisite for those applications also."

The judge found at paragraph 36: "However, as I find that Juad Khan was not married to Afia Begum, polygamously or at all, the appellant is not legitimate. This is a fundamental problem with this application". Accordingly the appeal under the Immigration Act therefore failed.