The delay in considering applications for compassionate appointment and the object and purpose of compassionate appointment were central legal principles established in the judgment.

JUDGMENT :

Nitin W. Sambre, J.

1. Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. Heard finally by consent of the learned counsel appearing for the parties.

2. The prayer made in this petition is to quash and set aside the impugned communication of the respondent No.1 dated 29-5-2019 and the consequential communication of the respondent No.2 dated 11-6-2019, whereby the respondents have rejected the application of the petitioner for grant of compassionate appointment.

3. The facts necessary for deciding the present petition is as under :

(i) The petitioner was issued a validity certificate on 29-4-2017 certifying that he belongs to ‘Andh’, Scheduled Tribe. The father of the petitioner, Late Umaji Raghuji Bele, was in the employment of the respondents, who expired on 13-9-1987.

(ii) Based on the above, the petitioner, who has attained majority on 20-1-2001, approached the respondents vide request letter dated 13-10-2010 for grant of compassionate appointment. The said request was duly considered and was put under process by the respondents, as is apparent from the communication dated 16-8-2011.

(iii) Subsequent thereto, the petitioner claimed to have been provided intermittent work by the respondents by making him to work for ten days in each English calender month, as is apparent from the communication dated 20-8-2012 issued by the respondent No.4, and such order has been passed by the respondents.

(iv) The respondents kept the proposal of the petitioner pending and subsequent thereto, vide impugned communications, they have informed the petitioner that since his proposal for grant of compassionate appointment is time-barred, as the application is preferred at much belated stage – (a) that is five years after attaining the majority and (b) that the very object of providing compassionate appointment is frustrated, the said proposal vide impugned communications came to be rejected.

4. The learned counsel for the petitioner, while questioning both the impugned communications by which the claim of the petitioner for grant of compassionate appointment was rejected, would urge that the respondents have failed to appreciate the very object and purpose with which the scheme for grant of compassionate appointment is implemented by the respondents initially in Correction Slip No.28 and thereafter in 2009, when the change in the policy took place. The learned counsel would invite the attention of this Court to the judgment of the Apex Court in the case of N.C. Santhosh Versus State of Karnataka and others, reported in (2020) 7 SCC 617, so as to claim that the petitioner has every right to consider his claim for grant of compassionate appointment. According to him, the proposal of the petitioner for grant of compassionate appointment was processed and during such time, he was provided temporary work by the respondents. The learned counsel by inviting our attention to the judgment of the Apex Court in the case of Malaya Nanda Sethy Versus State of Orissa and others, reported in AIR 2022 SC 2836, while considering the very object with which the provision of compassionate appointment is implemented, claims that the long pending application of the petitioner with the respondents and the intermittent provision of employment with the respondents disentitle the respondents to come out with a plea of the application of the petitioner being time-barred. He would draw support from the observation made in Paragraphs 7, 8 and 9 of the aforesaid judgment in the case of Malaya Nanda Sethy (supra).

5. While countering the aforesaid submissions, the learned counsel for the respondent No.4 would urge that at no point of time, the case of the petitioner was considered for grant of compassionate appointment by giving him any promise to that effect. According to him, the limitation of five years provided under Correction Slip No.28 was prescribed on 16-4-1975. His contention is that the limitation of ten years is subsequent to the date of expiry of the entitlement of the petiti