IMPORTANT POINT
Compassionate ground is a concession and not a right – Whole object of granting compassionate employment is to enable family to tide over sudden crisis – Object is not to give such family a post much less a post held by deceased.

JUDGMENT :

M.R. SHAH, J.

1. Feeling aggrieved and dissatisfied with the impugned judgment and order dated 31.03.2022 passed by the High Court of Kerala at Ernakulam in Writ Appeal No. 543 of 2021 by which the Division Bench of the High Court has dismissed the said writ appeal preferred by the appellants and has confirmed the judgment and order passed by the learned Single Judge directing the appellants to consider the case of the respondent herein for appointment on compassionate ground, the original appellants-Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore Ltd. and Others have preferred the present appeal.

2. The facts leading to the present appeal in nutshell are as under:

2.1 That father of the respondent was employed as a loading helper with the appellant No. 1 and expired while on duty on 19.04.1995. At the time of death of the employee, the wife of the deceased employee was serving and therefore, was not eligible for appointment on compassionate ground considering the scheme for employment of dependents of the employees dying in harness. After a period of 14 years, after the death of the deceased employee, the respondent daughter of the deceased employee made a representation seeking appointment on compassionate basis. That her application for compassionate appointment was rejected on 12.02.2018 on the grounds that her name was not in the list of dependents submitted by the deceased employee and that the policy was to give employment to widow or son or unmarried daughter of the deceased employee.

2.2 The rejection of the application for compassionate appointment was the subject matter of writ petition before the learned Single Judge. Vide order dated 13.11.2019, the learned Single Judge disposed of the writ petition with the directions to the appellants to reconsider the application of the respondent in accordance with Clause 1 of the Scheme.

2.3 That on 12.12.2019, after reconsideration, the appellants again rejected the application of the respondent for appointment on compassionate ground on the grounds that it did not meet the primary test of scheme that the deceased employee should be the “sole bread winner of his family” since his wife was gainfully employed with the Kerala State Health Services Department at the time of his death and also on the ground that 24 years have lapsed since the date of death of the deceased employee.

2.4 Feeling aggrieved and dissatisfied with the order dated 13.11.2019, rejecting the application of the respondent for appointment on compassionate ground, the respondent filed a writ petition before the High Court.

2.5 By the judgment and order dated 22.01.2021, the learned Single Judge allowed the said writ petition and directed the appellants to reconsider the respondent’s claim strictly in terms of the observations and directions passed in the order of the learned Single Judge dated 13.11.2019 passed in Writ Petition No. 11234 of 2018 (earlier round of litigation).

2.6 The judgment and order passed by the learned Single Judge was the subject matter of appeal before the Division Bench of the High Court by way of present writ appeal. By the impugned judgment and order, the Division Bench of the High Court has dismissed the said writ appeal, which has given rise to the present appeal before this Court.

3. Shri Siddharth Jha, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the appellants has vehemently submitted that in the facts and circumstances of the case and, more particularly, when the application for appointment on compassionate ground was made by the respondent-daughter of the deceased employee after a period of 14 years from the death of the deceased employee, the Hon’ble High Court ought not to have directed the appellants to reconsider the case of the respondent for appointment on compassionate ground. It is submitted that to reconsider the case of the respondent now for appointment on compassionate ground after a period of 24 years would be against the object and purpose of appointment on compassionate gro