AC-2025-MAN-000198 - [2025] EWHC 3017 (Admin)

This ground is directed to the Tribunal’s decision on 28 February 2025 not to accede to Dr Kumar’s application to require the Assistant Registrar who had decided the suspension should be considered at a review hearing rather than an ROP to attend the hearing and give evidence on the reasons for his decision. The Tribunal’s decision on this application is at Annex A to its decision. The Tribunal approached this issue by reference to Rule 34 of the Fitness to Practise Rules, which is a power to admit any evidence considered “fair and relevant” to the case being heard by the tribunal. Dr Kumar’s case was that the Assistant Registrar’s decision in favour of a hearing process was wrong and had failed to pay attention to his health. The Assistant Registrar should, contended Dr Kumar, have agreed to continue the suspension without the need for a hearing.

In his Skeleton Argument for this hearing and in the submissions he made to me, Dr Kumar contended that evidence of the Assistant Registrar’s reasons would have been relevant to the Tribunal’s decision on sanction. He further submitted that the decision that his suspension should be considered at a hearing demonstrated procedural bias, alternatively a predetermined decision that he should be erased from the Register.

The Tribunal’s decision was that evidence from the Assistant Registrar explaining the decision that suspension should not be considered at a further paper review was not relevant to the issues before it – i.e., Dr Kumar’s fitness to practise and, if he was not fit to practise, whether the suspension should be continued or whether other action should be taken.

I can see no error in this conclusion. The Tribunal was correct to conclude that the Assistant Registrar’s decision was not relevant to the issues it had to consider. The Assistant Registrar’s decision went only to the form of the proceeding to consider whether the suspension should continue; his decision was only that a hearing should be convened. By the time of the Tribunal hearing, any challenge to that decision was academic. Nor could the decision to have a hearing be construed as revealing any form of bias or predetermination towards an outcome other than continuation of the suspension. At the hearing all options remained open to the Tribunal, including continuation of the suspension (the decision that Dr Kumar wanted). The Assistant Registrar’s reasons were immaterial, both to the decision on sanction and, for that matter also, to the prior decision on fitness to practise. In this case, even though there was no dispute that Dr Kumar’s fitness to practise was impaired, the reason for that impairment (and whether it was limited to Dr Kumar’s lack of up-to-date clinical skills) would be relevant to the decision on sanction. Those were matters for the Tribunal, taking account of all evidence available. Whatever the Assistant Registrar’s reasons were for his decision that these matters be considered at a hearing they were not matters relevant to either of the matters that the Tribunal had to decide.

For sake of completeness I add that there is no plausible argument that the decision taken by the Assistant Registrar, that this suspension should be considered at a hearing, was wrong. Dr Kumar’s suspension had not been considered at a hearing since September 2019. The review on paper process requires the Registrar to consent to continuation of a suspension. The conclusion that after 5 years, whether or not Dr Kumar’s suspension should continue should be considered at a hearing was plainly the correct decision. In these circumstances, there is no room for any inference of bias to arise from that decision.

Nor can it be said that the Assistant Registrar’s decision on this occasion had ignored what Dr Kumar had said about his health in his email dated 18 November 2024. The reasons that the Assistant Registrar had given (in the email dated 18 December 2024) were cogent reasons. Those matters simply outweighed Dr Kumar’s preference for an ROP. Moreover, the only decision taken by the Assistant Registrar was whether or not a hearing should take place. If Dr Kumar wanted to delay the hearing on health grounds, he could have asked the Tribunal to do that. If that matter had been raised it would have been for the Tribunal to decide whether there was good reason to delay the hearing. So far as I can tell Dr Kumar did not, either before the hearing on 28 February 2025 or before the resumed hearing on 1 April 2025, ask the Tribunal to adjourn because he was not fit to attend.