Naik v Represented by: Mr G Singh, Solicitor University of Aberdeen st and 13 others — 2022

At the preliminary hearing, the tribunal recorded that the claimant would not proceed with the sex discrimination claim. It also noted that the unfair dismissal claim under s94 ERA 1996 remained live and would proceed once the deposit issues were resolved.

The victimisation claim under s27 Equality Act was struck out. The tribunal held that the pleadings did not set out facts from which it could infer that the claimant suffered a detriment because he had lodged the March 2020 grievance, and it found the same defect in relation to the dismissal, the grievance appeal decisions, and the decision to defer the second grievance. On that basis it also dismissed the related individual respondents from the claim.

On race discrimination, allegation (iv) in Table A was struck out because the claimant was not in materially similar circumstances to the PhD student comparators. The remaining Table A allegations were not struck out, but were treated as having little reasonable prospect of success and were each made subject to a £50 deposit. On harassment, allegations (i), (vii) and (x) in Table B were struck out for want of detail or any factual link to race, while the remaining allegations were also made subject to £50 deposits. The tribunal referred to the Rule 37 strike-out threshold and the separate Rule 39 deposit-order test, citing authorities including Ezsias, Blockbuster, Anyanwu, Mechkarov, Bahl, Madarassy, Ahir, Van Rensburg, H v Ishmail and Hemdan.