Rahat (Migration)

This matter concerns an application by Jobayer Ahmed Rahat, a citizen of Bangladesh, for review of a decision by a delegate of the Minister for Home Affairs to cancel his subclass 573 student visa. The visa was granted on 24 April 2014, with an expiry date of 30 August 2018, to allow the applicant to undertake a Diploma of Engineering leading to a Bachelor of Engineering. The delegate cancelled the visa pursuant to section 116(1)(b) of the Migration Act 1958 on the grounds that the applicant had breached a visa condition requiring him to remain enrolled in a registered course of study. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal convened a hearing on 5 September 2019 to consider the merits of the applicant's case.

The primary legal issue before the Tribunal was whether the applicant had breached condition 8202 of the Migration Regulations 1994, which mandated that he remain enrolled in a full-time registered course of study. If this condition was found to have been breached, the Tribunal then had to determine whether the visa should be cancelled. The delegate's decision identified a period from 27 October 2016 to 30 August 2017, totalling over 10 months, during which the applicant was allegedly not enrolled in a registered course, based on information from the Provider Registration and International Student Management System (PRISMS) database.

The Tribunal considered the applicant's circumstances, including a car crash, limited academic progress, family health issues, and continued employment. However, the Tribunal's reasoning focused on the objective fact of enrolment as recorded in the PRISMS database. The Tribunal affirmed the delegate's finding that the applicant had breached condition 8202 by failing to remain enrolled in a registered course of study for the identified period. Consequently, the Tribunal affirmed the decision to cancel the applicant's visa.