Mr B Vaidya v The Secretary of State for Justice — 2024

The claimant, an Asian Indian Operational Support Grade employee, brought complaints of direct race discrimination, race-related harassment and victimisation arising from annual leave requests, attendance management warnings, a stress risk assessment, a partial retirement and roster application, a £30 voucher, and grievance decisions. The tribunal found the respondent had poorly communicated a change in process requiring partial retirement or part-time shift patterns to go through Detail/Invision, and that this explained why the claimant considered the handling of his application unfair.

On the annual leave, attendance management, voucher, stress risk assessment, partial retirement and grievance matters, the tribunal found either that the alleged act was not made out in the way alleged or that there was no evidence from which it could infer race discrimination, race-related harassment or victimisation. It accepted, where it made findings on the reason for conduct, explanations including application of the Rule of Four, the attendance management policy, the requirement for Detail-approved rosters, administrative failure, or the conclusions of grievance investigations.

The tribunal found the claimant's two grievances were protected acts for the purposes of victimisation, as conceded by the respondent, but held that the alleged detriments were not because of those protected acts. It also found that all claims other than the December 2022 grievance appeal issue were out of time, that there was no continuing act, and that it was not just and equitable to extend time. All claims before the tribunal failed and no remedy was awarded.