At the Tribunal
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE MUMMERY (P)
MR E HAMMOND OBE
MR J C RAMSAY
Transcript of Proceedings
JUDGMENT
PRELIMINARY HEARING
Revised
APPEARANCES
For the Appellant APPELLANT IN PERSON
MR JUSTICE MUMMERY (PRESIDENT): This is the first of the preliminary hearings of three appeals brought by Mr P Pandya. In this case the preliminary hearing is of an appeal against the decision of the Industrial Tribunal held at Leicester on 22 September 1993. The Tribunal, for reasons sent to the parties on 28 September 1993, decided that
Mr Pandya's complaint of unfair dismissal should be dismissed. The complaint of unfair dismissal was brought by an originating application presented on 25 May 1993. Mr Pandya claimed unfair dismissal from his position as a cashier. He gave his dates of employment as beginning on 3 May 1991 and ending on 26 February 1993.
The Respondent employer put in a Notice of Appearance dated 1 September 1993, agreeing that the dates of employment given by Mr Pandya were correct; stating that the reason for dismissal was an economic reason and taking the point that Mr Pandya had been employed for less than 2 years, and was therefore unable to substantiate a claim for unfair dismissal. The Tribunal accepted that as a complete answer to the claim. The full reasons of the Industrial Tribunal are the briefest we have seen. They were quite simply the Applicant clearly did not have sufficient service to satisfy the provisions of Section 64 of the Employment Protection and Consolidation Act 1978. On this basis, as well as for his non-attendance at the hearing, the Tribunal decided to dismiss the application. Mr Pandya appealed against that by a Notice of Appeal served on 10 November 1993.
We have considered his grounds of appeal and his oral arguments this morning. The conclusion we have formed is that this appeal has no prospects of success, because it is clear on Mr Pandya's own case that he does not have the two years continuous service needed to support his claim for unfair dismissal. The right not to be unfairly dismissed does not apply to his case by reason of Section 64(1A) of the 1978 Act. He is unable to bring himself within any of those cases where a qualifying period is not required. In those circumstances the appeal is dismissed.