Case 6001635/2023 · Employment Tribunal
Dr M Anadani v The Sheffield College At A PUBLIC PRELIMINARY HEARING — 2024
- Case reference
- 6001635/2023
- Decision date
- 22 January 2024
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Maidment Appearances
- Venue
- Leeds
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Dr M Anadani
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningAt a public preliminary hearing on 22 January 2024, Employment Judge Maidment struck out the claims about timetabling in September 2022 coinciding with Friday prayers, work allocation and excessive hours in September 2022, and the direct discrimination and harassment claims based on race and/or religion. The claimant's separate complaints of victimisation were not struck out and were said to proceed to the final hearing already listed.
The tribunal applied Rule 37 and referred to the caution in Anyanwu and the later approach in Ahir that discrimination claims should only be struck out in the most obvious and plainest cases, but may be struck out where they are inherently improbable or baseless. It found that the workload complaint was about six months out of time and the Friday prayers complaint at least four months out of time, because early conciliation was not started until 22 August 2023 and the complaint was not presented until 24 August 2023 after the issues had been resolved by January 2023, or earlier.
The tribunal did not accept the claimant's explanation that he lacked experience or time to research how to bring a tribunal complaint. It held that the balance of prejudice favoured the respondent, which would be required to deal with events dating back to September 2022 when it had reasonably believed the matters had been resolved.
On the merits, the tribunal said the claimant had not advanced any positive case that the September 2022 decisions were because of religion, and it could not see facts from which such a conclusion might reasonably be drawn. For the later suspension, investigation and no-case-to-answer matters, the claimant explained that he was pursuing victimisation; he was not articulating a case that the treatment was because of religion or race, so those direct discrimination and harassment claims also had no reasonable prospect of success.
Claims and outcomes
4 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Religion or belief discrimination | Claims about the September 2022 timetabling allocation coinciding with Friday prayers and the September 2022 workload allocation were out of time and had no reasonable prospect of success; religion-based allegations about the later suspension were also struck out. | Struck out | Religion or belief | — |
| Race discrimination | Race-based allegations linked to the later suspension, investigation and no-case-to-answer decision were struck out for no reasonable prospect of success. | Struck out | Race | — |
| Harassment | Harassment allegations related to race and/or religion were struck out; the tribunal applied the same no-reasonable-prospect analysis. | Struck out | — | — |
| Victimisation | The claimant's separate victimisation complaints were not struck out and were said to proceed to the final hearing already listed. | Other | — | — |
Legal tests applied
6 references- Rule 37
- Anyanwu v South Bank Students' Union and South Bank University
- Ahir v British Airways Plc
- no reasonable prospect of success
- just and equitable extension
- balance of prejudice
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
- Open official judgment 1 PDF on gov.uk
- Open official judgment 2 PDF on gov.uk
- Open official judgment 3 PDF on gov.uk
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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