Kamlesh Bahl

Unless you're living on Mars, you will know the Employment Appeal Tribunal overturned the decision in Kamlesh Bahl v The Law Society last week.

The judgment is 93 pages long, and makes for dull reading. But it is nevertheless worth reporting, for the following reasons:

* it contains an excellent summary of the principles of law relating to direct discrimination (paras. 80-90);

* it reminds tribunals not to confuse unreasonable behaviour with discriminatory behaviour (and provides extended justification for the distinction - paras. 93-101)

* it considers the problems of identifying a hypothetical compatator (paras 102-115), including circumstances where it is unnecessary to identify any comparator

The bulk of the decision deals with the facts of the case, and analyses the evidence (and the tribunal's thought process) in great detail. The ultimate conclusion is that the tribunal had no evidence before it from which it could infer discrimination, whereas it had an abundance of evidence to show there was a non-discriminatory reason for the treatment of Dr Bahl. Accordingly the findings of sex and race discrimination were overturned.

The Law Society v Kamlesh Bahl