S. B. SINHA, C. J.

( 1 ) WHETHER compassionate appointments on the ground of medical invalidation satisfy the requirement of Article 16 of the Constitution of india is the question involved in these writ petitions.

( 2 ) BEFORE adverting to the said question, we may refer to certain Government Orders issued in this regard.

( 3 ) THE Government of Andhra Pradesh vide G. O. Ms. No. 504, General Administration (Services-A) Department, dated July 30, 1980 has extended the scheme of compassionate appointment introduced in G. O. Ms. No. 687, dated October 3, 1977, to the spouse / daughter/ son of a Government servant retired on medical invalidation under Article 441 of andhra Pradesh Pension Code (Vol. 1) subject to the conditions mentioned therein.

( 4 ) BY G. O. Ms. No. 309 General administration (Services-A) Department dated july 4, 1985, the Government had confined the benefit of compassionate appointment to son/daughter/spouse of government employee, who retires from service on medical grounds five years before attaining the age of super-annuation, irrespective of the age of super-annuation prescribed for the posts and services.

( 5 ) THE Government vide G. O. Ms. No. 214 dated June 9, 1998 issued instructions as regards the scrutiny of the proposals of compassionate appointments on medical invalidation in respect of cases pertaining to offices at District Level and the State Level.

( 6 ) BY Memo No. 36299/ser. A/99-1 dated june 25, 1999, the Government has clarified that the required period of five years of left over service of government employees who retire on medical invalidation, shall be reckoned from the date of issue of orders of retirement on medical invalidation.

( 7 ) THE Government has relaxed the condition of five years leftover service of one d. Gopaiah, Attender of Office of engineer-in-Chief on the date of his retirement on medical invalidation by G. O. Ms. No. 260 dated June 13, 2001 on the ground that the reason for short fall in the left over service was due to delay in processing the case by the administrative Department.

( 8 ) BY reason of Articles 14 and 16 of the constitution of India, great hopes and aspirations were generated in the minds of the people of India that employment shall not be given on descent. Public employment is considered to be public wealth. The economy of the State has taken a tilt from agriculture to public employment and the growth rate of employment has increased to 34%. On a plain reading, Article 16 of the Constitution of India carries no exception. The Apex Court, however, in Yogender Pal Singh v. Union of india, AIR 1987 SC 1015 : 1987 (1) SCC 631 : 1987-I-LLJ-337 stated at p. 344:"while it may be permissible to appoint a person who is the son of a police officer who dies in service or who is incapacitated while rendering service in the Police Department, a provision which confers a preferential right to appointment on the children or wards or other relatives of the police officers either in service or retired merely because they happen to be the children or wards or other relatives of such police officers would be contrary to Article 16 of the Constitution. "

( 9 ) THE Apex Court referred to its earlier decision in Gazula Pasaratha Rama Rao v state of Andhra Pradesh, AIR 1961 SC 564, and held that grant of public employment only on descent is impermissible. It was opined:"we are of opinion that the claim made by the appellants for the relaxation of the Rules in their cases only because they happen to be the wards or children or relatives of the police officers has got to be negatived since their claim is based on descent only, and others will thereby be discriminated against as they do not happen to be the sons of police officers. Any preference shown in the matter of public employment on the grounds of descent only has to be declared as unconstitutional. " (emphasis supplied)

( 10 ) THE matter relating to grant of compassionate appointment only in limited situation took its r

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