Compassionate appointment should prioritize the urgent financial needs of deceased employees' families, ensuring fair evaluation of circumstances, while judicial review is limited to jurisdictional errors.

ORDER :

1. Feeling aggrieved by order dated 26.09.2024 passed by learned Central Administrative Tribunal, Jaipur Bench, Jaipur in Original Application No. 216/2020, whereby directions have been given by learned Tribunal to the Union of India (Department of Posts) to reconsider the case of applicant for appointment on compassionate ground in the next meeting of Circle Relaxation Committee, the instant writ petition has been filed by the petitioners.

2. Facts, which are relevant for the purpose of adjucation of the dispute involved in the instant writ petition, are that the respondent filed Original Application before learned Tribunal contending therein that his father late Shri Mahaveer Prasad Sharma was holding the post of Mail Guard, Railway Mail Service Kota in the office of Senior Superintendent of Railway Mail Services, JP Division, Jaipur. However, father of respondent expired on 29.11.2017, while he was in service and the sudden death of sole bread earner in the family has left the entire family in grave financial crisis. It was further submitted by the respondent that his mother had already expired much earlier to the death of father. Under these circumstances, he filed an application for seeking compassionate appointment as per the Scheme prevailing in Department of Posts. However, his application was rejected on the ground that the Circle Relaxation Committee had although considered the application as per the marking scheme prevailing in the Department, yet the respondent could secure only 38 points against much higher points secured by other candidates to whom compassionate appointment was offered.

3. The respondent in his Original Application submitted that the consideration made by Circle Relaxation Committee was arbitrary and in fact the scheme was not appreciated in correct manner. Points awarded to the respondent were in total non-consideration of the prevailing circumstances in as much as that the family pension admissible to the sister of the respondent was only for a limited period i.e. till her marriage and the income of brother of the respondent was also hardly Rs.4,000/- per month, which was negligible and could not have been taken into consideration for denying compassionate appointment to the respondent. Hence, he prayed for allowing the Original Application to grant him compassionate appointment in place of his deceased father.

4. The petitioner-Department filed reply to the Original Application and categorically denied the allegations and defended the action of the Department by stating that marking system while considering the applications for seeking compassionate appointment, is quite transparent and justifiable. The Circle Relaxation Committee duly appointed for considering the cases of compassionate appointment has taken into consideration the number of vacancies for compassionate appointment along with comparative assessment of financial conditions and liabilities of the respective families of the deceased and after due comparison of different applications, marks were fairly awarded to different applicants, where the respondent could not secure proper marks so as to get benefit of compassionate appointment. Hence, there was no infirmity in the action of the petitioner-Department and therefore, a request was made to reject the Original Application filed by the respondent.

5. After examining the record and hearing the arguments of both the sides, learned Tribunal disposed of the Original Application vide order dated 26.09.2024 with the direction to the petitioner-Department to reconsider the case of the applicant for compassionate appointment in the next meeting of Circle Relaxation Committee keeping in mind the observations made in earlier part of order. That apart, learned Tribunal has also made observations with regard to whimsical and fanciful consideration made by the petitioner-Department while giving benefit of compassionate appointment to different candidates.

6. Learned counsel for the petitione