Point of Law: Employment and Service matter - Grant of compassionate appointment - Rejection of claim for compassionate appointment to a person who was directly dependant upon earnings of deceased employee would be arbitrary and would also be in contravention of intentions of framing scheme for compassionate appointment.

ORDER :

1. Aggrieved by the order dated 04.06.2020, the present writ petition has been filed. Vide the said impugned order, the respondents have rejected the claim of the petitioner for grant of compassionate appointment on the ground that two brothers of the petitioner are already in government employment.

2. Brief facts relevant for the adjudication of the present writ petition is that the father of the petitioner late Roop Ram Sahu was working as a Headmaster under the respondents. He died in harness on 04.10.2019. On the date of death the deceased employee the petitioner and widow of the deceased were dependent on the deceased. They were totally depending upon the income of the deceased. Two other brothers of the petitioner i.e. sons of the deceased employee were already in government employment, married long ago and have their own family and children living separately even before the deceased had expired. Thus, on the date of death of the deceased it was only the petitioner and his mother who were dependent.

3. On the death of the deceased namely Roop Kumar Sahu, the petitioner had moved an application for compassionate appointment, however, vide the impugned order the application has been rejected on the sole ground that the brothers of the petitioner are already in government employment.

4. It is the contention of the petitioner that since two brothers got their employment long back and they have already married and they have their own family and children and also living separately and not supporting financially, they do not fall within the definition of dependents of the deceased. Moreover, the two brothers who have already married and have their own family depending upon them, cannot be considered to be a permanent source of income for the petitioner and his widowed mother for sustaining themselves. To that extent the authorities ought to have conducted an enquiry and thereafter should have taken a decision.

5. The State counsel on the other hand opposing the petition submits that since the two brothers of the petitioner are already in government employment, in terms of the policy for compassionate appointment the candidature of the applicant has been rejected and in the absence of any challenge to the policy, the decision of the respondent cannot be said to be bad.

6. At this juncture, it would be relevant to take note of a recent judgment passed by this Court in WP (S) No. 1025/2020 (Nandini Pradhan vs. State of Chhattisgarh and Others). The said Writ Petition was allowed on 18.2.2020 wherein the Court has relied upon the judgment passed on an earlier occasion in the case of Smt. Sulochana Netam vs. State of Chhattisgarh and Others in WP (S) No. 2728/2017 decided on 23.11.2017 wherein this Court had allowed the said Writ Petition and set aside the earlier order passed by the authorities and had remitted the matter back for a fresh consideration of the claim of Petitioner after due verification of dependency aspect, firstly upon the deceased employee and secondly whether the brothers of Petitioner who are in government employment are providing any assistance to Petitioner or not and also whether those brothers have married and have their own family or not and whether they are staying along with Petitioner or not. These are the facts which ought to have been verified while rejecting the claim of Petitioner in the present Writ Petition and which does not seem to have been considered by the authorities and they simply passed an order on hyper-technical ground specifically disentitling the Petitioner for claiming compassionate appointment in the event of family members of deceased employee being in government employment.

7. This Court is of the firm view that the intention by which the said clause inserted by the State Government in the policy of compassionate appointment was to ensure that the compassionate appointment can be given to a person whose is more needy. It never meant that in the event of there being somebody in the