he ruled that the couple were entitled to damages
The Home Office could be forced to pay damages after breaching the human rights of a married couple who were held separately before their planned deportation to India.
The Muslim man and his Hindu wife took legal action against the department in 2025, arguing that being housed separately before their removal was an “unlawful interference” with their right to family life.
The couple entered the UK in 2022, but their legal leave to remain expired in 2024.
They applied for asylum in March 2025, saying they feared persecution in India because of their interfaith marriage.
The Home Office rejected their application in August 2025 and certified it as “clearly unfounded”, meaning they could not appeal the decision.
The couple were detained separately from September 2025 while awaiting removal, before being released in early October.
At a hearing in June 2026, their barristers argued that the asylum refusal was “procedurally unfair” and unlawful. They also claimed that certifying the application as “clearly unfounded” was “irrational”.
The couple’s legal team further said that keeping them apart unlawfully interfered with their human rights and entitled them to financial damages.
The Home Office challenged the asylum decision, with its legal team arguing that the couple had been given a fair opportunity to provide evidence.
The department initially told the court that shared accommodation was generally available for married couples, but claimed the pair had been separated because their removal was imminent.
But on September 15, Deputy High Court Judge Simon Tinkler said the Home Office conceded during the hearing that keeping the couple apart during detention had unlawfully interfered with their human rights.
The judge said the admission came after the department recognised that it had no facility where the couple could be housed together, having had no such provision since 2020.
He said: “The position maintained by the Home Office throughout the proceedings to that point, that there had been genuine consideration of housing FNB and FNN together was, the Home Office admitted, essentially a fiction.”
Judge Tinkler dismissed the challenge to the asylum decision, ruling that it was “correct and is the decision the court would have made”.
However, he ruled that the couple were entitled to damages over the acknowledged human rights breach concerning their detention.
The amount of compensation will be calculated at a county court at a later date.
In his 28-page ruling, Judge Tinkler criticised what he described as the Home Office’s “serious failure” in its duty to be candid with the court.
He said the court had been “misled” over the availability and consideration of accommodation for the couple.
He said: “It may, or may not, be entirely legitimate not to provide family accommodation for families without dependent children for a short period pending removal.
“But it is not legitimate to mislead the claimants and the court into believing that such accommodation exists.”
“Nor is it legitimate to mislead the claimants and court that such accommodation was actively considered for these claimants and that the option of it was rejected.”
Judge Tinkler also instructed the Home Office to examine whether similar issues had affected other cases.
He added: “It is also for the Home Office urgently to review all current cases in which a similar matter has been raised to ensure that the Home Office is complying with its obligations to the court and other parties.”
