The disciplinary proceedings abated on the death of the employee, entitling the petitioner to the difference in salary and consideration for compassionate employment for her son.

( 1 ) IT is now well-settled law that a Public Authority particularly in its dealings with its employees is required to act fairly but the time has come to amplify that requirement by specifically adding on one more dimension namely the duty to act humanely. Normally, this requirement would have been considered to be implicit in the former but experience has shown that Institutions often act with a degree of rigidity and severity by insisting on technical and strict compliance with the rules which is construed as fair treatment insofar as the letter of the law is observed but this unfortunately falls short of the requirement insofar as when dealing with human beings, the special factors and circumstances, many of which are situational and which are inter-twined with the facts of the case, cannot either be dissected or separated in the process of decision making. This very important aspect has been directly thrown up in the present case which involves a few other significant dimensions of law which I shall presently deal with. The facts are rather simple and can be briefly summarised in that the present petitioner is the wife of late R. Shivakumar who was last employed as a Manager by the respondent-Bank namely the State Bank of Mysore. He was holding the post of the Manager of the Lokkanahalli Branch of the Bank in Mysore District. It is alleged that in the course of his duties, he had committed certain acts of misconduct which consisted of opening bogus accounts in the names of certain persons, showing loans having been sanctioned to them which in fact were appropriated by the Manager himself. The Bank's case is that through such a modus operandi the late R. Shivakumar is alleged to have misappropriated approximately Rs. 58,000/ -. The bank, by order dated 6-2-1992 placed him under suspension. The petitioner at the relevant time was in a rather precarious condition insofar as he was suffering from a serious heart complaint in addition to several other attendant circumstances. The suspension order was followed by a charge-sheet dated 19-8-1992 and an amendment dated 10-3-1993. The charge-sheet was further added to on 28-9-1993. An enquiry was commenced which made some headway insofar as the Enquiry Officer commenced the proceedings, a few hearings were held but before the enquiry could be completed, R. Shivakumar passed away on 26-11-1993. The Bank did not settle the dues of the petitioner for two reasons the first being that it contended that there was material to indicate that the deceased had committed acts of misconduct involving pecuniary loss of Rs. 58,000/- to the Bank and secondly that there were certain amounts outstanding from him under various heads such as house loan etc. R. Shivakumar had left behind his widow, a son and daughter and it is contended by the wife of the late R. Shivakumar who is the petitioner before me that the family suffered great financial distress as a result of his illness and his death and that in the course of the medical treatment, the family had incurred huge expenditure which meant taking of loans. An application was therefore made requesting that in view of the compassionate employment scheme which was at that time in operation that the petitioner's son should be employed by the Bank in his place. Similarly, the petitioner wife had agitated the question regarding the various dues payable to the petitioner by the Bank and in view of the fact that the Bank refused to either employ her son or to settle these dues, she has filed the present petition praying for appropriate reliefs.

( 2 ) THE contentions taken up in the petition are of some consequence. Firstly, it is contended that irrespective of the charges that the late R. Shivakumar had to face, that the disciplinary proceeding had not concluded and that consequently, the same abates on his death which means that the respondents are wrong in seeking to fasten any liability on r. Shivakumar in respect of those charges wh