England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions

QUEEN ON APPLICATION OF CHAUDHRY v. SPECIAL ADJUDICATOR and SECRETARY OF STATE FOR HOME DEPARTMENT [2000] EWHC Admin 62 (26th January, 2000)

Neutral Citation Number: [2001] EWHC Admin 62

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE CO 2888/00

QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

(ADMINISTRATIVE COURT)

Royal Courts of Justice

Strand

London WC2

Friday 26th January 2000

MR JUSTICE OUSELEY:

Introduction:

1. Mr Chaudhry, the claimant, an Indian national, challenges by way of judicial review a decision given by the Special Adjudicator on 5th July 2000. By that decision she dismissed the claimant's appeal from the refusal of his asylum claim by the Secretary of State for the Home Department given on 11th February 2000. The Secretary of State also certified the claim under paragraph 5(2) of Schedule 2 to the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993, as amended, because India is designated as a country in which, in general, there is no serious risk of persecution. He also refused the claimant leave to enter the United Kingdom.

2. The claimant sought asylum on the basis that he has a well-founded fear of persecution by non-state actors in India, against whom India is unable or unwilling to provide protection.

Before the Special Adjudicator the claimant claimed that he was persecuted for his membership of a particular social group. The Special Adjudicator accepted that he had a genuine fear of persecution from the associates of a dead alcohol bootlegger called Davinder Coach, from whom in Haryana State, the police had been unwilling to protect him. However, the Special Adjudicator did not accept that he had been persecuted for the convention reason relied on: namely, membership of a social group. The social group on which the claimant relied consisted of the claimant and two others who were the subject of a vendetta. Such a group lacked the necessary cohesiveness to be a group, independently of persecution.

3. The Special Adjudicator also concluded that it would not be unduly harsh to expect the claimant to relocate to some other part of India than Haryana State, for a variety of reasons.

4. Put shortly, the claimant contends that the Special Adjudicator's decision was unlawful: first, because she failed to consider the readily discernible and strongly arguable convention point in his favour that the persecution of the claimant was in reality because of his political opinions, even though his case had not been put in that way; secondly, because she made errors of law in her approach to internal flight.

The decision letter:

5. The Special Adjudicator's decision letter adequately summarises the background in paragraphs 3 to 7. Her decision letter records the claimant's evidence in support of his claim which elaborates that background. I propose to just read the background paragraphs to set the scene:

"Mr Chaudhry arrived in the United Kingdom on 22 May 1999 and claimed asylum on arrival. He was interviewed on 13 July 1999. The basis of his claim was that he feared persecution in India from the friends and associates from the late Davinder Coach.

4. Mr Chaudhry was Secretary of the Students Union at the University where he was studying in Haryana State. The leader of the Haryana Vikas Party, Chaudhray Basilal, had pledged to ban alcohol in the State. He did so in April

1997, and was supported by the President of the Union of which the appellant was secretary, Mr Davinder Coach. But the appellant learned that Davinder Coach was involved in bootlegging. Mr Chaudhry denounced Davinder Coach's activities. Soon after, Coach's friends attacked him with hockey sticks, and injured him.

5. The following year, in March 1998, Bansilal decided to lift the ban on alcohol (which was in fact lifted on 1 April 1998). At a rally in which the announcement was made, the appellant waved a black flag in order to indicate his opposition to the lifting of prohibition. He was again attacked by Coach's friends.

6. The appellant reported both attacks to the police. They refused him a Police Report or any protection. Coach was murdered in May 1998. Thinking that he would be suspected of the murder, the appellant fled to Rishikesh and stayed at an Ashram for about one month. He then returned home, having received a letter from his parents that it was safe for him and his two friends. He went back to the University, but within one week was attacked again by Coach's friends. The appellant remained in hiding at home for one and a half months and then went to Delhi, via his cousin's house in Bahadurgar.

7. Mr Chaudhry lived in Delhi until December 1998, staying with a friend. He met a fellow student on a bus in Delhi who told the appellant that he could not return home because his life was in danger. Mr Chaudhry arranged with an agent to leave the country. He travelled on a false passport with his friend and a friend of the agent, first to Paris and then on to the United Kingdom".

6. The Special Adjudicator found the claimant to be a credible witness as to the genuineness of his fear of persecution by Coach's gang of former associates, for reasons which she spelt out.

7. In the first paragraph 47 of her decision she considered whether the claimant was being persecuted, recognising that persecution may be at the hands of non-state agents,

"knowingly tolerated by the authorities, or if the authorities refuse, or prove unable to offer effective protection".

The Special Adjudicator considered the arguments put forward by the claimant in this manner:

"Mrs Chandran argues that the fact that the local police force refused to file a complaint on his behalf amounted to a refusal to offer effective protection. It is clear that they refused protection to the appellant, presumably because they were under the thrall of the Chief Minister and his son, Surinder Singh, the MP and friend of Davinder Coach. I would point out, however, that they did not abuse the appellant, nor did they pursue him in their murder enquiries, nor did they issue a false FIR. They merely refused to act. The appellant then decided that it was useless to go back to them, but he did not seek protection elsewhere, in Rishikesh or in Delhi. He did not take his complaint further. He felt it was useless, with good reason, to complain to the university authorities. I am not clear whether a complaint to the Panchayat would have been effective. The appellant did not seek legal advice. This, I feel sure, would have been open to a man of his status. However, the general position is that the police refused protection".

There thus appears to be a conclusion reached by the Special Adjudicator, not merely that the claimant was being persecuted, but also that the local state police authorities had refused effective protection against that persecution.

In the second paragraph 47 the Special Adjudicator then considered whether the persecution was for a convention reason. She said:

"The question then to be determined is whether the persecution the appellant feared was for a Convention reason. Mrs Chandran argued that her client was part of a social group, although she did not attempt to define the social group to which he belonged. This is where I have the greatest difficulty. Were teetotallers being targeted, or religious Hindus who refuse alcohol, or members of the Student Federation of India, I would have no difficulty, because these are groups which are identifiable independently of the persecution suffered. The appellant is one of three people who are the subject of a vendetta by the associates of the late Davinder Coach in some misguided effort to avenge his death. This comes close to the situation in Savchenkov [1996] Imm AR 28. The reasoning in Shah and Islam [1999] Imm AR 283 still requires a degree of cohesiveness of the group independent of the fact of persecution. I do not find that this cohesiveness exists in this case."

9. I now turn to deal with the first ground upon which the decision is challenged.

Political opinion.

10. The claimant's first submission was that the Special Adjudicator had erred in law in not considering whether the claimant had a well-founded fear of persecution for a different convention reason from that which she had rejected: namely, for his political opinions. In certain circumstances, a duty arises on a Special Adjudicator to consider a basis for a claim for asylum which has not been put forward by the claimant. The source and nature of this duty is explained by the Court of Appeal in the Queen v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte Robinson [1998] QB 99 and [1997] 4 All ER 210. In paragraph 39 of that decision, pages 222j to 223b in the latter report, with which I was provided, the Master of the Rolls, Lord Woolf said:

"If there is readily discernible an obvious point of convention law which favours the claimant although he has not taken it, then the special adjudicator should apply it in his favour, but he should feel under no obligation to prolong the hearing by asking the parties for submissions on points which they have not taken but which could be properly categorised as merely 'arguable' as opposed to'obvious'. Similarly, if when the tribunal reads the special adjudicator's decision there is an obvious point of convention law favourable to the asylum seeker which does not appear in the decision, it should grant leave to appeal. If it does not do so, there will be a danger that this country will be in breach of its obligations under the convention. When we refer to an obvious point we mean a point which has a strong prospect of success if it is argued. Nothing less will do. It follows that leave to apply for judicial review of a refusal by the tribunal to grant leave to appeal should be granted if the judge is of the opinion that it is properly arguable that a point not raised in the grounds of appeal to the tribunal had a strong prospect of success if leave to appeal were to be granted."

I have applied that approach in considering whether or not to grant judicial review in this case.

11. Miss Chandran for the claimant, who also appeared before the Special Adjudicator, submits that, notwithstanding her own failure to analyse his case in this particular way, the claimant had a readily discernible point of convention law in his favour and a strong prospect of success if it were argued, such that it was an error of law for the Special Adjudicator to fail to deal with it. She submits that this test is satisfied in respect of her argument before me, that, rather than being persecuted for membership of a particular social group his case ought to have been analysed as one of persecution for political opinions.

12. She submits that his religious beliefs led to his political opinion that the sale of alcohol should be banned by law, a view which he publicly expressed. He discovered that, whilst in Haryana the sale of alcohol was prohibited, Davinder Coach, the president of the students' union at Haryana University, of which the claimant was secretary, was smuggling in alcohol from the states where its sale was lawful. The claimant organised a protest. Shortly after he was attacked by friends of Davinder Coach. Later, alcohol sales were then legalised. Following a public protest by the claimant, Davinder Coach and his friends again attacked the claimant with a gun. The police had refused to help the claimant on both occasions because, it was said, of a connection between Davinder Coach and the son of an Haryana state chief minister; indeed, the police were said to have blamed and detained the claimant.

13. When a few weeks later Davinder Coach was murdered. The claimant, because his name had been linked with disapproval of Davinder Coach's activities and fearing that he would be a target, left the state for one to two months. When he returned he was again attacked by Davinder Coach's friends with chains and knifes. So he went to Delhi. These matters are referred to in the Special Adjudicator's summary of the claimant's evidence which she accepted. Miss Chandran submits that a broad purposive approach is required as to what constitutes political opinion and that a mixture of motives, for persecution of which political opinion is one strand, suffices to satisfy the Geneva Convention. She submits that a narrow or restrictive approach to judging what was the reason for persecution should be avoided.

To support her submissions, she referred me to passages in an Immigration Appeal Tribunal decision given on 20th November 2000 by the President. This case was called Gomez v. The Secretary of State for the Home Department. In particular, she referred me to paragraphs 21 and 22 in that decision where the President said:

"21. In keeping with the proper interpretation of an international treaty, a broad purposive construction must be afforded to all five convention grounds including the political opinion ground. Shah and Islam [1999] Imm AR 283 at 293. Interpretation must not narrow the definition of 'political' beyond recognition, nor rely on intricate distinctions of definition when denied political opinion status in the context where a broad use is recorded.

22. By the same token, interpretation of the next exercise whether persection is 'on account of' one of the five convention grounds, must also eschew narrow or restrictive interpretation. In this context it must always be borne in mind that the motives of the persecuted may be mixed. It is not necessary to show that they are purely political. As was stated by the US 9 Circuit in the case of Harpinder Singh v Ilchert 63 FSd at 1501 'Persecutory conduct may have more than one motive and so long as one motive is one of the statutorily elected grounds, the requirements have been satisfied'... Whilst in the UK our courts have been reluctant to exclude the possibility that persecution can arise from a state practice without their being any clear motive Ravichandran [1996] Imm AR 97, there has been similar recognition, as we shall see that where motives are involved they can be mixed".

15. Miss Chandran submitted that the beatings administered to the claimant by Davinder Coach and his friends while Davinder Coach was alive, were clearly done for political reasons in whole or in part because of the claimant's expressed anti-alcohol views, which he had pressed through an election campaign; and that the killing of Davinder Coach, which led to the vendetta against the claimant by Davinder Coach's friends did not alter that or break the chain.

The associates of Davinder Coach believed that the claimantc's political views on alcohol had led to his publicly expressed opposition to the activities of Davinder Coach, and therefore that the claimant had killed Coach. That was a sufficient of politics mixed within the motives for their acts for them to constitute persecution for political opinions. If the answer to the question, posed theoretically to Davinder Coach's associates as to why they were persecuting the claimant, was "because we believe he murdered Davinder Coach", yet the reason for their belief was the political opinions which the claimant had, that was still a sufficient component of political opinions, within the mixture.

16. Mr Kovats, for the Secretary of State, submitted that this was far from being a readily discernible point with strong prospects of success. The question which had to be asked is: what is the subjective intent of the persecutors? The Special Adjudicator in the second paragraph 47 on the determination letter concluded:

"The appellant is one of three people who are the subject of a vendetta by the associates of the late Davinder Coach in some misguided effort to avenge his death."

That was not persecution for political opinions. What had to be considered was why Davinder Coach's associates wanted to pursue the claimant, not why they believed he was involved in the killing of Davinder Coach. It was insufficient to satisfy the test simply to show that there was a possible point which could have been explored and which might have yielded something. In any event, the factual foundation for the way in which the claimant put his case was lacking, because there could be reasons other than the claimant's opinions on alcohol, why Davinder Coach's friends might have believed him to be involved in the killing of Coach: his flight itself or fear of further exposure of criminal activities, or indeed revenge for the beatings which Davinder Coach's friends had administered earlier to the claimant.

In examining the subjective intent or motive of the persecutors it was important to recognise that there had been no campaign against the supporters of an alcohol ban generally. It was important to distinguish between a mixture of motives which included political opinion and a case where political opinion may have been a factor in bringing about the situation, but was not itself the reason or part of the reason for any of the acts of persecution.

17 Mr Kovats referred me to the Queen v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte Velasco (unreported 5th April 2000). In that case Lord Justice Sedley refused a renewed application for permission to appeal by a Columbian asylum seeker who, whilst a member of an opposition group, was being persecuted, it was said, because he had discovered embezzlement by the governing authority in the local authority where he worked voluntarily. The fact that his membership of the opposition party put that claimant in a position where he had discovered the embezzlement and but for which he would not have been at risk, did not mean that in any ordinary sense of the words he was being persecuted for his political opinions; a "but for" test was inappropriate"?

18. Mr Kovats also relied on Gomez, accepting that in principle, a mixture of motives for persecution, which included political opinions, would suffice. He referred me to paragraph 56 in the Immigration Appeal Tribunal decision in that case. In that paragraph the Tribunal was considering the case of Jeah before the New Zealand Refugee Status Appeals Authority. Jeah concerned a businessman from whom Peruvian terrorists, the Sendero Luminoso were extorting money and who claimed that he was being persecuted for the political opinion which the Sendero Luminoso imputed to him. The New Zealand Appeals Authority commented:

"As counsel recognised, if this case is to succeed at all it must be on the imputed political opinion limb. The evidence establishes that the money was extorted from the appellant and others in order to fund the Sendero Luminoso in their attempt to overthrow the state. But the mere existence of a generalised political motive underlying the terrorists forced extraction of money from businessmen is inadequate to establish the proposition that the appellant fears persecution on account of his actual or imputed political opinion."

I interject that I accept of course that the instant case is not a case of imputed but one of actual opinion. But the comment of the New Zealand Appeals Authority is nonetheless apposite. The Immigration Appeals Tribunal returned to this case in its conclusions at paragraph 73.10.

"Even in a case where an appellant can make out a Convention ground of political opinion he or she must still also establish that the persecution is on account of that political opinion. It is common sense under this nexus test that even where persecutors have political views about those they target, it may not always be the political opinion that motivates their actions. As was said in Jeah the mere existence of a generalised political motive does not lead to the conclusion that the persecutor perceives what the claimant has said or done

as political."

I recognise in this case, of course, that the political opinions that are said to be the cause of the persecution are those of the claimant rather than specifically those of the associates of Davinder Coach, but that does not alter the value of the comments that have been made in the Gomez case and Jeah.

19. I accept that the claimant's views on the sale of alcohol are political views and that a broad common sense, rather than a narrow and restricted, approach to the link between political opinions and persecution is required. I also consider that an analysis of the asylum claim as one based on political opinion rather than membership of a particular social group was reasonably discernible from the material before the Special Adjudicator. It was indeed the more obvious way favourable to the claimant to analyse his claim. However, for the Robinson test to be satisfied and for the conclusion of the Special Adjudicator to be legally-flawed, I have to be satisfied that so analysed, the claimant's case has strong prospects of success. I do not consider that it does. Whilst an analysis on the basis of political opinion is the obvious way to analyse the claim, it is still a weak case. That, in essence, is because the reason why he is, and fears being, pursued by Davinder Coach's associates, is because they want to kill him as revenge for what they believe he did, as the Special Adjudicator concluded. That is not persecution on the grounds of his political opinions, but persecution as part of a personalised vendetta. They are not trying to kill him for his political opinions.

20. In so concluding, I have taken the claimant's case at its highest because this is an asylum claim and requires anxious scrutiny. That is to say, I have taken it that the reason why Davinder Coach's associates attributed the killing of Davinder Coach to the claimant and his friends, is because they saw the claimant as a political opponent of Davinder Coach's activities. There are other reasons of course why those associates might well have concluded that the claimant was involved in the killing of Davinder Coach; for example, his flight itself or revenge for earlier attacks on the claimant himself.

21. However, even taken at its highest, as I have described, the claimant's political opinion is not part of the motive or reasons for Davinder Coach's associates actions. The persecution by those associates is not part of a more generalised campaign against those who hold the claimant's views on alcohol. There is no evidence of any political opinion being held by the associates of Davinder Coach. The existence and expression of the claimant's political opinion is part of the background to the vendetta, but on a broad common-sense approach is neither the cause nor part of the cause for his persecution. I do not consider that the link between political opinion and persecution can be answered other than by asking: why is the claimant being persecuted? To that question the Special Adjudicator has given a clear answer.

22. I do not consider that the correct approach is to ask why the claimant's persecutors have attributed the killing to him, revenge for which is the cause of the persecution. That is too indirect an approach rather than one which involves a mix of motives; as an approach it is not one which has strong prospects of success as an argument for the claimant. Whilst this case is stronger than some of the examples in Velasco where a "but for" test could lead to an asylum claim based on an irrelevant coincidence of political opinions with the true cause of persecution, as in Velasco, the claimant's political opinions have become part of the background circumstances leading to the events for which the claimant is actually being persecuted, rather than being the reason or part of the reason itself for the persecution. Whilst it is at least arguable that the initial beatings before Davinder Coach was killed, had a mixed set of motives of which the claimant's political opinion formed part, the vendetta after Davinder Coach's death was judged by the Special Adjudicator to be continuing because the claimant was thought to have been involved in it. That is the true and effective cause of the persecution which he now fears. This position is, in essence, no different from that which arises if a person out of his political beliefs commits a serious criminal offence. His subsequent prosecution is not for his political beliefs but for the offence. If a person is suspected by the authorities because of his political beliefs, albeit wrongly, of having committed a serious criminal offence, his subsequent prosecution is not because of his political beliefs but because the authorities suspect him of having committed the offence.

23. Miss Chandran has done no more than show that the more obvious analysis of the claimant's asylum claim suffers from the same factual weakness as to the cause of persecution, whichever convention reason is deployed. It is not enough in order to satisfy the Robinson test to show this was an issue which could warrant investigation, or that there might have been further facts which could have emerged, or evidence could have been given with a different emphasise. I have, however, examined this case taking the claimant's argument at its highest based on what he was credibly regarded by the Special Adjudicator as saying.

Internal flight.

24. This is dealt with by the Special Adjudicator in paragraph 48 of her determination, she said:

"There remains the question of internal flight: whether or not it is reasonable to expect the appellant to relocate to another part of the country before seeking international protection. The test is set out in Robinson [1977] Imm AR 94. It seems to me that it would not be unduly harsh to expect the appellant to relocate in another part of India. His evidence amounted to a fear of a conspiracy throughout all the states in India where there was a BJP element, to kill him. This does seem to me to be fanciful. The appellant lived for nearly six months in Delhi. He met a friend on the bus. He thought that his friend would tell the Coach gang that he was living in Delhi, but he was not sure. Mr Chaudhry felt that he could not live in the south because Surinder Singh was involved in a transport business linking Bombay with Bangalor. He could not live in Gujerat, a teetotal state, because he did not know anyone there. But the appellant does not know anyone in the UK, save his friend with whom he travelled and who is also applying for asylum. On the positive side of the balance, Mr Chaudhry would still be living in a country where Hinduism is the majority religion, where he has been educated, where his wife and children and parents are living. Moreover, I do not believe it is idle speculation to suggest that Mr Chaudhry could seek and obtain police protection in an area outside Haryana."

25. The claimant submits that there is error in this paragraph, first, because the Special Adjudicator directs herself by reference to the test in Robinson. Miss Chandran says that that case was overtaken by a decision of the Court of Appeal given on 25th January 2000 in the case of Karanakaran v Secretary of State for the Home Department (25th January 2000) unreported -- at least so far as I am aware. She submitted that the effect of Karanakaran was to require the relevant factors for this issue to be examined cumulatively. A factor could make a contribution, even if it had not been proven, on the basis of either balance of probability or even on the basis of a serious possibility. Robinson, she said, permitted factors to be discounted if they were not seriously possible.

26. I do not accept that the Special Adjudicator was in error in referring to Robinson. Robinson, a decision of the Court of Appeal, was not overruled by Karanakaran nor was it distinguished nor was it qualified. Robinson does not contain the test ascribed to it by Miss Chandran. In paragraph 42 of Robinson, the difficulty of challenging the availability of internal flight was referred to, when on the facts of that case the Special Adjudicator had rejected the appellant's argument that he had a well-founded fear of persecution -- in that case -- in Colombo. However the decision referred to the range of factors without mention of any particular standard of proof or any failure to examine them cumulatively.

27. Lord Justice Brooke in Karanakaran, considered the question of whether it would be unduly harsh to expect the applicant to stay in Colombo, as it was in that case, as a surrogate for the question derived from the wording of the convention itself of whether the claimant was unable to avail himself of the protection of his home country in Columbo. He pointed out at page 22 in the transcript that the approach in Kaja of evaluating the relevant factors of which the Court of Appeal approved involved the following:

"This approach does not entail the decision-maker (Whether the Secretary of State or an adjudicator or the Immigration Appeal Tribunal itself) purporting to find'proved' facts, whether past or present, about which it is not satisfied on the balance of probabilities. What it does mean, on the other hand, is that it must not exclude any matters from its consideration when it is assessing the future unless it feels that it can safely discard them because it has no real doubt that they did not in fact occur (or, indeed, that they are not occurring at present). Similarly, if an claimant contends that relevant matters did not happen, the decision-maker should not exclude the possibility that they did not happen (although believing that they probably did) unless it it has no real doubt that they did in fact happen.

For the reasons much more fully explained in the Australian cases, when considering whether there is a serious possibility of persecution for a Convention reason if an asylum seeker is returned, it would be quite wrong to exclude matters totally from consideration in the balancing process simply because the decision-maker believes, on what may sometimes be somewhat fragile evidence, that they probably did not occur. Similarly, even if a decision-maker finds that there is no serious possibility of persecution for a Convention reason in the part of the country to which the Secretary of State proposes to send an asylum seeker, it must not exclude relevant matters from its consideration altogether when

determining whether it would be unduly harsh to return the asylum seeker to that part, unless it considers that there is no serious possibility that those facts are as the asylum seeker contends.

Needless to say, as the High Court of Australia observed in Wu Shan Liang, when assessing the future, the decision-maker is entitled to place greater weight on one piece of information rather than another. It has to reach a well-rounded decision as to whether, in all the circumstances, there is a serious possibility of persecution for a Convention reason, or whether it would indeed be unduly harsh to return the asylum-seeker to the allegedly"safe" part of his/her country. This balancing exercise may necessarily involve giving greater weight to some considerations than to others, depending variously on the degree of confidence the decision-maker may have about them, or the seriousness of their effect on the asylum-seeker's welfare if they should in the event, occur.

I should add, for the avoidance of doubt, that I accept Miss Giovannetti's submission that when dealing with questions of internal protection, the decision-maker should simply ask: Would it be unduly harsh to expect the claimant to settle there? In answering this question it may have to take into account the cumulative effect of a whole range of disparate considerations, in respect of some of which it may be satisfied that they probably did occur (or are occurring), while in respect of others it may only think that there is a serious possibility that what the claimant and/or his/her witnesses is saying is correct.

Although we are not concerned in the present case with the possibility of persecution for a Convention reason by non-state agents against which the home state is unable to provide adequate protection, it follows from this analysis that the decision-maker should follow a similar approach in that context."

28. This approach does not explicitly appear in the Robinson case. But Karanakaran was consistent with the approach generally already then being adopted to the evaluation of such material and was consistent with Robinson itself. There is nothing in paragraph 48 of the determination letter to suggest that the Special Adjudicator discounted any relevant considerations because they had failed to reach a particular standard of

proof. She did not treat Robinson as containing an exhaustive list of relevant factors and considerations that could arise. Quite the reverse; the relevant factors are rehearsed, weighed and the conclusion is reached that the claimant's fear of a conspiracy to kill him throughout India was fanciful and that it was not an idle speculation to suggest that the claimant could have obtained protection outside Haryana state. His personal circumstances were considered.

29. Miss Chandran's second submission was that the Special Adjudicator had failed to deal with the fact that in Rishikesh and Delhi, the claimant has been in hiding. The Special Adjudicator had referred to what he did whilst in Rishikesh and Delhi in paragraphs 14, 15, 26 and 27 of the determination. I do not consider that her analysis fails to reflect what the claimant actually told her, including the fact that in Delhi he went every day to his friend's factory and then home again and occasionally went to a small park; and that although he had been spotted in Delhi by a friend he had had no trouble there.

30. Miss Chandran's third submission was that the Special Adjudicator's determination was unlawful because she had failed to specify where it would be safe for the claimant to return to and where it would not be unduly harsh for him to return. There is no requirement for a specific place to be identified in every case. Here the Special Adjudicator's conclusion was clear: anywhere other than Haryana state would suffice. It is not necessary for the Special Adjudicator to list all the states in India other than Haryana.

31. Accordingly this application fails.