The Bombay High Court bench of Justices Sunil Shukre and Anil Kilor at the Nagpur seat on Monday held that if a family survives for years altogether without a government job on compassionate basis, cannot be given a job on compassionate basis. The bench, accordingly, dismissed the plea filed by a man, seeking a directive to the Integrated Child Development Department (ICDC) to consider his son's claim on compassionate basis job.
The bench heard the plea filed by Ravindra Gadhave, who challenged the orders of the state authorities denying job to his son, after 11 years of his wife's death.
According to Gadhave, his wife, a superintendent of the ICDC, died in 2011. At that time, her husband was nearly 35 years of age and was running a fair price shop. He had applied for job under compassionate quota, however, his plea was put in the waiting list for an eligible vacancy to arise.
After a decade of his plea, Gadhave made an application to the authorities to now consider his son, who was a minor in 2011. He sought replacement of his name with his son's on the ground that he (Gadhave) had already reached the maximum age (i.e. 45 years) for consideration. He argued that the state should consider replacing his name with his son's and in not doing so, the state was violating his right to equality, as envisaged under the Constitution of India.
"No policy of the state which forbids change of name of legal representative of any deceased employee seeking compassionate appointment could be upheld as reasonable because it goes against the object sought to be achieved by granting compassionate appointments," the bench noted.
The judges further said that usually the compassionate appointment is an exception to the general rule of open selection to public appointments, is permissible in law on the ground that it helps a family, which has lost its sole bread earner, to come out of the financial crisis.
"The object of compassionate appointment is to prevent such family from being driven to vagrancy and immediate financial help is provided to such family. It is believed that at least this way the family would be able to make two ends meet and pull itself out of the situation of dire straits," the judges said adding, "But, when it is seen that in spite of not providing of any compassionate appointment to a family, the family manages to survive itself not for few months but for several years together, such family would not be in need of any compassionate job."
"Gadhave, a widower is running a fair price shop. His family has managed to survive for about 11 years without any compassionate job. This would show that his family never required any immediate financial help. Then, there is no vested right in any legal representative of the deceased employee to get the compassionate job," the bench held.
The judges, accordingly, dismissed Gadhave's plea.
