Federal Court Rejects Refugee Claim Due to Credibility Issues

Date: 20260601 Docket: IMM-8107-25 Citation: 2026 FC 710 Ottawa, Ontario, June 1, 2026 PRESENT: Madam Justice Azmudeh BETWEEN: [NAME] Applicants and MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION Respondent

REASONS AND

JUDGMENT I. Overview [ 1 ] For a second time, the Applicants seek judicial review of a decision of the Refugee Appeal Division [ RAD ]. [NAME] upheld the rejection of their refugee claim by the Refugee Protection Division [ RPD ] of the Immigration and Refugee Board [ IRB ]. Coincidently, I also heard the judicial review of the first RAD decision. I allowed the application because an internal inconsistency led to a self-contradictory conclusion ( [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2024 FC 1794). [ 2 ] The Applicants are citizens of India, from the state of Punjab. Their claim is based on their fear of the Punjab police. Their concerns arose after the [NAME] Applicant, [NAME], complained to the authorities that a police officer, known as [NAME], attempted to sexually harass the daughter of the family’s housekeeper. The Applicants allege that even though [NAME] was initially expelled from the village police, he returned later with a promotion. They also believed that [NAME] poisoned their cattle, which drove the family out of dairy business, unleashed the Hindu fundamentalist groups against them, and had the police falsely accuse them of involvement with terrorists. After two days of hearings in July 2022 and January 2023, the RPD rejected the claim on credibility. The second panel of [NAME] whose decision is being reviewed ultimately upheld the RPD’s conclusion and upheld the conclusion that the Applicants were not credible in establishing their claim.

II. Issues and Standard of Review [ 3 ] The Applicants identify two major errors [NAME] committed, that, in their opinion, would render the decision unreasonable. The first error is how [NAME] rejected the new evidence under subsection 110(4) of Immigration and Refugee Protection Act , SC 2001, c 27 [IRPA]. The second error is [NAME]’s adverse credibility findings. I address each in turn. [ 4 ] I agree that the standard of review for [NAME]’s decision is reasonableness. Reasonableness review is a deferential standard that requires evaluating the outcome of an administrative decision in light of its rationale to determine whether the decision is transparent, intelligible, and justified ( [NAME] v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) , 2019 SCC 65 at paras 12–15, 95 [ [NAME] ]). The reasons are the primary mechanism by which administrative decisionmakers show that their reasons are reasonable ( [NAME] at para 81). [NAME] , a reasonable decision is “based on an internally coherent and rational chain of analysis” and is “justified in relation to the facts and law” ( [NAME] at para 85). [ 5 ] The party challenging the decision must prove that it is unreasonable. For a reviewing court to overturn an administrative decision, the applicant must establish that there are “sufficiently serious shortcomings” such that it “cannot be said to exhibit the requisite degree of justification, intelligibility, and transparency” ( [NAME] at para 100).

III. Analysis [ 6 ] Generally, the Court provides a great degree of deference to an expert administrative tribunal’s credibility findings. [ADDRESS] will not normally interfere with a decision if the evidence before the Board, taken as a whole, would support its negative assessment of credibility, if its findings were reasonable in light of the evidence, and if reasonable inferences were drawn from that evidence ( [NAME] at para 85; [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2020 FC 426 at paras 33–35). A. It was Reasonable for [NAME] to Reject the New Evidence [ 7 ] New evidence before [NAME] is subject to the restrictions in section 110(4) of the IRPA. The evidence must also be credible, relevant, new, material, and fulfill the express statutory conditions ( [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2016 FCA 96 [ [NAME] ] and [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2007 FCA 385 at para 13). In this case, the Applicants attempted to file a new affidavit by their neighbour in Punjab. The same neighbour had also filed an earlier affidavit that was before the RPD. In that earlier affidavit from 2022, the neighbour had stated a few things. First, that he knew that the Applicants were dairy farmers, second, that on November 5, 2014, a number of their cattle died under mysterious circumstances, and third, that the Applicants also notified the police. In the more recent affidavit from 2025, the neighbour stated that, since the 2022 affidavit, “police are still searching [NAME] and his family and asked about their whereabouts in their every visit” . [ 8 ] [NAME] found that the affidavit was not credible. The neighbour had not mentioned in his first affidavit that the police were searching for the Applicants. [NAME] also found that the document also contained irregularities on its face, raising concerns that the document had been digitally manipulated. [ 9 ] Even if I agreed with the Applicants’ arguments that [NAME] engaged in a microscopic inspection of the neighbour’s affidavit, the contradiction identified is material and goes to the core of a claim based on a fear of the local police. The Applicant’s entire case is based on their fear of the police and the police’s abuse of power, and on the claim that their problems had started and continued in a manner that forced them to leave. Their fear of the police or the police’s ongoing actions are not a peripheral or immaterial fact. Therefore, the affidavit’s credibility, and not its form, was the determinative issue for rejecting it. [ 10 ] In light of the material contradiction, it was reasonable for [NAME] to consider that the new evidence was not credible, and their treatment of any irregularities with the stamps on the documents, even if not reasonable, was not determinative. [ 11 ] Ultimately, [NAME] applied the criteria set out in section 110(4) of IRPA and the factors set out in [NAME], including the credibility of the evidence, and pointed to the material inconsistency with the core of the claim. [ 12 ] The Applicants argued that there was no contradiction because the first affidavit had a more limited scope and was limited in scope to the killing the cattle. I find that this argument is effectively a disagreement with how [NAME] weighed the evidence. [ADDRESS] does not reweigh evidence on judicial review ( [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2023 FC 1557 at para 48; [NAME] at para 125). B. [NAME]’s Decision was Reasonable [ 13 ] Reading the decision holistically, [NAME] focused on material inconsistencies to impeach the Applicants’ credibility, and concluded that their evidence was insufficient to overcome those concerns. [NAME] also clearly explained when they did not find that the Applicants’ evidence was sufficient to establish the inferences they wished [NAME] to make. (1) [NAME] that the Applicants’ Evidence Contained Material Contradictions [ 14 ] For example, in their Basis of Claim Form (BOC), the Applicants had stated that in October 2017, the [NAME] received an anonymous threatening call. However, at the RPD hearing, she testified that she recognized the caller to be the angry police officer, [NAME]. She stated that she recognized his voice. Again, given that the Applicants’ claim was based on their fear of the local police, and more specifically [NAME], omitting in the BOC that she believed the caller was police is material and not trivial. The Applicants’ belief that the call came from the police is particularly material, as the call was made on the [NAME] Applicant’s return to India to see a lawyer, which prompted the police to accuse them that they were linked with terrorists. [ 15 ] The Applicants explained that there was no contradiction because [NAME] had never identified himself. This does not explain why they did not provide more relevant context in their BOC on their belief that the call came from [NAME], when [NAME] was their [NAME] agent of persecution. (2) [NAME] Conjectures by the Applicants [ 16 ] The Applicants alleged that their son was drugged in school, and they believed that it was done by [NAME]. [NAME] accepted as a credible the fact that the son’s body was exposed to drugs, it found that the Applicants’ related inferences, that he was drugged by agents related to [NAME], were conjecture. [NAME] provided a clear chain of reasoning as to why the evidence was insufficient to establish the Applicants’ deductions on the identity or motives of how drugs were administered. [ 17 ] [NAME] concluded that the alleged link between the drugs and how and why they were taken was speculative. This conclusion falls within a range of acceptable and defensible outcomes and is justified, transparent, and intelligible in light of the record. I find that the Applicants are in effect asking this Court to reweigh the evidence, which is not this Court’s role ( [NAME] at para 125). [ 18 ] The starting point for assessing credibility comes from [NAME] , where the Federal Court of Appeal stated that when a claimant swears that certain facts are true, these facts are presumed true unless there is valid reason to doubt their truthfulness ( [NAME] v Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration), 1979 CanLII 4098 at p 305 [ [NAME] ]). However, though this presumption of truthfulness applies to facts alleged by refugee claimants, it does not apply to deductions they make based on those facts ( [NAME] v Minister of Employment and Immigration , [1994] FCJ No 657 at paras 5–6 [ [NAME] ]). The record clearly shows that the Applicants had speculated as to the identity and motives of who gave the drugs to their son. It was thus reasonable for [NAME] not to accept their speculation when the Applicants led no evidence to substantiate the drugs’ provenance. [ 19 ] Similarly, [NAME] found that the documentary evidence regarding the death of the cattle—which included a postmortem report, a lab report and a diet analysis report—did not support the Applicants’ speculations that [NAME] had deliberately poisoned their cattle. [NAME] explained why the documents did not establish a link between the elevated amount of nitrate in soil, which could also be found in fertilizers, and the allegation that the agent of persecution had poisoned the cattle. Though the Applicants are correct to point out that the lab report suggested that the fodder had an elevated presence of nitrite, it was open to [NAME] to find that the Applicants had not established that [NAME] poisoned the cattle. [ 20 ] The Applicants had also provided evidence on ownership of the land and on medical information, but these documents were not relevant to the core of the claim, namely a fear of [NAME]. [ 21 ] [NAME] also found that two news articles concerning the death of the cattle did not help to establish that [NAME] had poisoned the cattle and only established that the cattle had died. In doing so, [NAME] rejected the Applicants’ allegation that the articles omitted [NAME]’ identity because of corruption in the police. As a deduction based on the facts the Applicants advanced, [NAME] was entitled to reject it ( [NAME] at paras 5-6). [ 22 ] I agree with the Applicants that [NAME] member engaged in a microscopic analysis of the shape of the stamps on individual documents, namely the village Sarpanch’s affidavit and the police diary on the Applicant’s complaint about the death of their cattle (Complaint) to impeach their credibility. Adverse credibility findings generally should not be “based on a microscopic evaluation of issues peripheral or irrelevant to the case” ( He v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2019 FC 2 at para 23 [ He], citing [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2016 FC 1197 at para 15). I also agree that, while they were given notice to explain some inconsistencies, they were not asked to explain all of them. [ 23 ] However, I find that those findings were not determinative. For example, based on this type of microscopic analysis, which can sometimes render a decision unreasonable, the member rejected the authenticity of the police complaint about the death of their cattle they led as evidence. In light of the insufficiency of the Applicant’s evidence to prove the cause of their cattle’s death, whether or not they complained to the police is not particularly determinative. Therefore, the potentially unreasonable approach to the Complaint did not render the decision as a whole unreasonable. [ 24 ] By contrast, I do not find [NAME]’s focus on the form of the Sarpanch affidavit to be microscopic or trivial. On their face, the coat of arms in the two documents differed visibly, and it was therefore reasonable for [NAME] to reject it based on this apparent discrepancy which must have been visible to the Applicants all along, which they could have addressed. (3) [NAME] that Supporting Evidence did not Outweigh their Credibility Concerns [ 25 ] [NAME] relied on material omissions and contradictions, all related to [NAME]’ role in the allegations, to find that the Applicants lacked credibility. In this light, [NAME] found that the remaining supporting documents cumulatively did not outweigh their credibility concerns. [ 26 ] Further, [NAME] found that the Applicants’ failure to acquire corroborating evidence from the housekeeper’s daughter undermined the Applicants’ fear of [NAME] on the ground that [NAME] had engaged in sexual misconduct against her. There is no general requirement for corroborative evidence, and a panel cannot make adverse credibility findings on the simple absence of corroborative evidence ( He at para 24, citing [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2013 FC 452 at para 6). However, where there are valid reasons to doubt claimants’ truthfulness, a panel can consider an applicant’s failure to lead evidence if the failure to lead it is not reasonably explained ( He at para 24, citing [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2007 FC 1026 at para 22; [NAME] v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) , 2004 FC 12 at para 10). [ 27 ] Here, the Applicants told the RPD that they had not thought of getting letters of support from either their former housekeeper or her daughter. It was open to [NAME] to consider that this explanation by the Applicants for failing to lead this corroborative evidence was unreasonable, adding to their credibility concerns. [ 28 ] Then, [NAME] reasonably considered that supporting documents did not outweigh their credibility concerns. The [NAME] Applicant’s brother in Canada had also provided an affidavit to his knowledge of what had happened in India. It was reasonable for the member not to give this affidavit probative value because the brother had no direct knowledge of the events in India. Similarly, the Indian lawyer’s understanding of the facts was based on what his clients, the Applicants, had told him, which was not necessarily a reflection of the facts taking place on the ground. [ 29 ] In all, while the Applicants disagree with how [NAME] weighed the evidence, the member’s reasoning for not giving weight to individual pieces follows a clear chain of reasoning.

IV. Conclusions [ 30 ] I find that [NAME]’s decision was reasonable. I therefore reject the judicial review. [ 31 ] The parties did not propose a certified question, and I agree that none arises.

JUDGMENT IN IMM-8107-25 THIS COURT’S

JUDGMENT is that : The application for Judicial Review is dismissed. There are no questions to be certified. "Negar Azmudeh" Judge blank "Negar Azmudeh" Judge FEDERAL COURT SOLICITORS OF RECORD DOCKET: IMM-8107-26 STYLE OF CAUSE: [NAME] ET AL. v MCI PLACE OF HEARING: MONTRÉAL, QUEBEC DATE OF HEARING: MAY 13, 2026

REASONS FOR

JUDGMENT AND

JUDGMENT: AZMUDEH J. DATED: JUNE 1, 2026 APPEARANCES: [NAME] FOR THE APPLICANTS [NAME] FOR THE RESPONDENT SOLICITORS OF RECORD : [NAME] Montréal (Quebec) FOR THE APPLICANTS [NAME] Department of Justice Canada Montréal (Quebec) FOR THE RESPONDENT