Gurdip Ram Bungar v The Registrar for Approved Driving Instructors

NCN: [2026] UKFTT 00692 (GRC) Case Reference: FT/D/2025/1340 First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) Transport Heard by Cloud Video Platform Heard on: 1 May 2026 Decision given on: 19 May 2026 Before JUDGE SIMON BIRD KC MEMBER RICHARD FRY MEMBER MARTIN SMITH Between GURDIP RAM BUNGAR Appellant and THE REGISTRAR FOR APPROVED DRIVING INSTRUCTORS Respondent Representation: For the Appellant: Mr Gurdip Ram Bungar Mr Ryan Bungar For the Respondent: Mr Andrew Heard Decision: The appeal is Allowed REASONS Introduction

1. This appeal concerns a decision of the Registrar of Approved Driving Instructors (“the Respondent”) made on 3 November 2025 to remove the Appellant’s name from the Register of Approved Driving Instructors (“the Register”). The decision was taken on the grounds that the Appellant had failed to pass the test of continued ability and fitness to give instruction to continue as an Approved Driving Instructor (ADI). The Respondent directed that the decision would not take immediate effect.

2. The proceedings were held by video (CVP). The Tribunal was satisfied that it was fair and just to conduct the hearing in this way. The Appeal

3. The Appellant states that: (a) He did not receive e-mails for any of the four tests which it was claimed by the Respondent he had failed to attend between 2022 and 2025; (b) He had changed his e-mail at some point in 2023 and no longer had access to the previous e-mail account. (c) He was at fault for not updating his e-mail address with the Respondent, which meant that he had not received e-mails, if they were sent, inviting him to a Standards Check. However, the DVSA had his mobile telephone number and home address and could have contacted him by other means as had been their practice in the past. (d) The Respondent had only been able to find a Standards Check invitation for one appointment on 30 August 2023. That had not been received by him.

4. The Respondent resists the appeal. He says that: (a) The Appellant failed to make himself available on 4 separate occasions to undergo a test of continued ability and fitness to give instruction (on 24 November 2022, 24 May 2023, 30 August 2023 and 22 August 2025); (b) After failing to attend the first three dates offered to him, the Appellant was asked to provide representations as to why he did not attend for the test when required to do so. By letter dated 24 January 2024, the Appellant explained that he had not received any of the e-mails inviting him to attend, as he had changed his e-mail address, but had not informed the DVSA for which he apologised. (c) The Respondent had decided to allow one further opportunity to attend a Standards Check. By way of a confirmation e-mail sent on 30 May 2025, the Appellant was invited to attend the test on 22 August 2025. However, the Respondent was unable to produce a copy of this confirmation e-mail. He relied on a datasheet used to generate the e-mail confirming both the Appellant’s details and test appointment details. (d) The Appellant failed to take the test for a fourth time. (e) In response to the Respondent’s letter of 4 September 2025 stating that he was considering removing the Appellant’s name from the Register, the Appellant stated that he had not received three of the earlier invitations, but made no reference no reference to the May 2025 invitation. The Appellant had stated he had remained fully willing and available to undertake a Standards Check at the earliest opportunity. (f) The Respondent concluded that the Appellant had had sufficient opportunity to present himself for a test of continued ability and fitness to instruct test but failed to do so and that his name should be removed from the Register. The Appellant was notified of the decision by letter dated 3 November 2025. The Law

5. Entry of a person’s name in the Register is subject to the conditions set out in section 125(5) of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (the Act). Under section 128 of the Act the Registrar may remove the name of the person from the register if satisfied that they do not fulfil the relevant conditions. One of those conditions, at section 128(2)(d), is that the person has failed to pass a test of continued suitability and fitness to give instruction. Under 125(5)(a)(i) a person whose name is in the Register must submit to a test of continued ability and fitness to give instruction in the driving of motor cars, if required at any time to do so.

6. The powers of the Tribunal in determining this appeal are set out in section 131 of the Act. The Tribunal may make such order as it thinks fit (section 131(3)). The Tribunal stands in the shoes of the Registrar and takes a fresh decision on the evidence available to it, giving appropriate weight to the Registrar’s decision as the person tasked by Parliament with making such decisions (in accordance with R (Hope and Glory Public House Limited) v City of Westminster Magistrates Court [2011] EWCA Civ 31).

7. We have considered a bundle containing 34 pages along with oral submissions made at the hearing. Submissions

8. Both the Appellant and the Registrar made submissions at the hearing.

9. The Respondent summarised his Statement of Case and responded to questions from the Tribunal. In relation to the absence from the bundle of all but one of the e-mails inviting the Appellant to undergo Standards Check, the Respondent stated that further back in time, it was harder to find e-mails on the Respondent’s IT system but for 2025, the position should have been stronger. The datasheet presented to the Tribunal was the best the Respondent could do in relation to the May 2025 invitation.

10. After 2022, the Respondent had moved to e-mail only invitations for Standards Checks. Where an e-mail is not returned as undeliverable, if no booking is made by the ADI within 2 weeks, the Respondent books the test and e-mails confirmation to the ADI.

11. Where an e-mail is returned as undeliverable, then the DVSA will seek to contacts the ADI by other means. In this case, the first three e-mails were sent to the Appellant’s old e-mail address which may still have been an operating account, and therefore, they were not returned as undeliverable.

12. In this case, the Appellant was given the benefit of the doubt and given one last opportunity to undergo the Standards Check. There is no copy of that e-mail available and the Respondent was unable to confirm whether it was expressed as a “final opportunity”.

13. The Appellant could not recall when he changed his e-mail address, but he confirmed that he had not received any of the four e-mails and put the Respondent to proof of whether they had been sent. In relation to the May 2025 e-mail, which the Respondent says was sent to his correct new e-mail address, he had checked his spam and junk mail and it was not there. He had been working for five decades in the profession and would not knowingly miss a test. He confirmed he would take the test at the first opportunity if allowed to do so. Conclusions

14. Our starting position is that, whilst it is the practice of the Registrar to allow three attempts at the Standards Check, there is no requirement in law that an ADI be offered three such opportunities. Section 125(5) of the Act requires an ADI “if at any time required to do so by the Registrar, submit himself for (i) such test of continued ability and fitness to give instruction…as may be prescribed”.

15. That said, it is clearly in the interests that the process should be both a fair and reasonable one, and there may be any number of good reasons why an ADI is unable to attend a Standards Check on a given day or the Standards Check cannot take place on the given day. Indeed, the Appellant’s Standards Check record shows that one of the Appellant’s arranged Standards Checks was cancelled by the DVSA and another was cancelled by an “Act of Nature”. Some flexibility is therefore both necessary and sensible.

16. In this case, whilst the Respondent asserts that it has invited the Appellant to undergo Standards Checks on four separate dates, there is no evidence of those invitations before the Tribunal, save the invitation for the 23 August 2023 Standards Check.

17. The Tribunal cannot be satisfied on the evidence before it, that invitations were sent for the Standards Checks arranged for 24 November 2022 or 24 May 2023.

18. However, even had all three invitations been sent, there is no dispute that the e-mail address which would have been used (and was for the 23 Augst 2023 Standards Check), the Appellant’s old e-mail address, because he had failed to notify DVSA of his new e-mail address.

19. We found the Appellant to be a credible witness and accept his evidence that he did not see the first three invitations.

20. In the circumstances, we agree that it was reasonable for the Respondent to give the Appellant a further opportunity to undergo the Standards Check. Whilst the Appellant was at fault for not updating his e-mail address, and notwithstanding that the law requires an ADI to undergo a Standards Check at any time when required to do so, it would in our view be disproportionate to remove a person from the register for failing to undergo a Standards Check at a single time of asking, where there had been a communication breakdown, even where that was the fault of the ADI.

21. The difficulty for the Respondent in this appeal is that, having decided that it was reasonable to allow the Appellant one further opportunity to undergo the Standard’s Check, there is no satisfactory evidence before the Tribunal that he was in fact offered that opportunity. No copy of the email letter containing the invitation has been able to be put before the Tribunal and, whilst the datasheet may be the best that can be provided, it falls well short evidencing that an e-mail was sent to the Appellant on 30 May 2025 inviting to undergo the Standards Check on 22 August 2025. Without a witness statement which explains the processes behind the datasheet and their robustness, in terms of the issue and posting of invitations, the datasheet in our view, has little evidential value. It is a document which can be interpreted as indicating what might have happened, it does not evidence that it did.

22. In consequence, the Tribunal is not satisfied that the Appellant was notified of the 22 August Standards Check. Further, in our view, it would be disproportionate in the circumstance to remove the Appellant’s name from the Register without his being given one further opportunity to undergo the Standards Check. We have, therefore, reached a different decision to that of the Registrar.

23. We therefore allow the appeal and order that the Appellant’s name is not removed from the Register under Section 128 of the Act for his failure to undergo four Standards Checks on 22 August 2023, 24 May 2023, 30 August 2023 and 22 August 2025. . SignedJudge Simon Bird KCDate: 7 May 2026