Shah v Home Office: EAT finds disciplinary investigation arose from disability under section 15

The Employment Appeal Tribunal has allowed an appeal against a tribunal's rejection of discrimination and victimisation claims brought by a Home Office employee investigated for supposedly claiming disability dishonestly, ruling that the tribunal misdirected itself on causation under section 15 of the Equality Act 2010.

In Shah v Home Office [2026] EAT 103, His Honour Judge Tariq Sadiq considered a claimant who was disabled by reason of depression and had applied for an overseas post through the Home Office's Guaranteed Interview Scheme (GIS), which entitles disabled applicants meeting the minimum criteria to an interview. His line manager formed the view that he might be falsely claiming disability to secure that advantage, and a disciplinary investigation followed in August 2017. The employment tribunal upheld his unfair dismissal claim but dismissed his complaints of discrimination arising from disability and victimisation.

On the section 15 claim, the tribunal had accepted that the claimant ticked the GIS box because he was disabled, and that doing so arose from his disability, yet concluded that the investigation was instigated because of a genuine but mistaken belief in his dishonesty rather than because of anything arising from disability. It considered the case analogous to Kelso v Department for Work and Pensions.

Judge Sadiq held that reasoning to be flawed. Having found that the claimant ticked the box because he was disabled, the tribunal had, objectively, established the causal link between the disability and the relevant "something". A genuine but erroneous belief in dishonesty did not displace the disability as an effective cause of the treatment. Drawing on Pnaiser v NHS England and Hall v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, the judgement emphasised that the employer's motive is irrelevant and that causation under section 15 involves two distinct questions: whether the treatment was because of an identified "something", which examines the alleged discriminator's mind, and whether that "something" arose in consequence of disability, which is an objective question of fact. The tribunal had answered only the first. Its reliance on Kelso, where the claim had been struck out on admissions at a preliminary hearing, was misplaced, and the closely comparable Hall, in which a mistaken belief in misconduct did not defeat the claim, went unaddressed.

The judge rejected the Home Office's argument that the tribunal had found the box-ticking to arise from "a" disability rather than the claimant's disability, noting that such a reading would render the section 15(2) knowledge defence redundant. Ground one accordingly succeeded, and the EAT substituted a finding that the disciplinary investigation was unfavourable treatment because of something arising from the claimant's disability, remitting the justification defence to the same tribunal.

On victimisation, the tribunal had found that applying under the GIS was not a protected act within section 27(2)(c). Judge Sadiq held that it overlooked the connection between the GIS application and the positive action provisions in sections 158 and 159 of the Act, so that the application was at least arguably done in connection with the legislation. That question was remitted, together with causation on the victimisation claim, which fell to be reconsidered in light of the successful first ground.

A third ground, alleging a perverse finding about the identity of the decision-maker, failed. Read as a whole, the tribunal had found that the investigation was initiated by the line manager, and that conclusion was open to it.

The remitted issues return to the same tribunal, with an expressed hope that the parties will compromise rather than incur the cost of a further hearing.