Mr M Haque v Royal Mail Group Ltd. HELD BY: CVP — 2021

Mr M Haque presented a claim on 24 March 2020 alleging that a colleague had subjected him to discriminatory treatment on grounds of religion on 28 December 2019, 29 December 2019 and on an unspecified date in 2019. The claim was initially rejected because the ACAS certificate named a different respondent from the ET1. The claimant said he had named the colleague because he did not have the colleague’s personal address and believed the employer was being brought in through the workplace details. The claim was later corrected and accepted on 21 October 2020 after a certificate naming Royal Mail Group Ltd was obtained.

At the preliminary hearing, the tribunal decided the key issue was jurisdiction and whether it was just and equitable to extend time under s.123(1)(b) Equality Act 2010. The claimant said the delay was caused in large part by his union, that he was waiting for updates, and that he did not learn the claim had been rejected until 6 October 2020. He also relied on stress, COVID-related delay and personal difficulties, including his wife’s miscarriage in October 2020. The tribunal accepted that he acted reasonably in taking 14 days to correct the problem once he knew of it.

The respondent argued that the claimant and his advisers had left the claim until the end of the primary time limit, that the union should have dealt with correspondence and chased the rejection letter, and that any fault lay with the union rather than the respondent. The tribunal accepted those submissions. It treated the six-month delay as significant, considered that the cogency of evidence would be affected by the passage of time, and noted that the claim as presented was not sufficiently particularised to identify the discrimination alleged. It also relied on the principle that advisers can be expected to know what is required to present a claim in time against the correct respondent, and that if they were at fault the claimant might have a remedy elsewhere.

Applying the broad just-and-equitable discretion, and referring to Walls Meat Company Ltd v Khan and Adedeji v University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, the tribunal held that it was not just and equitable to extend time from March 2020 to 22 October 2020. The claim was therefore presented out of time and was dismissed. No monetary remedy was awarded.