Compassionate appointment is a concession, not a right, requiring timely application and eligibility.

Judgment Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari, J.

The present Original Petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India challenges the order dated 30^th December 2025 passed in O.A.No.180/00383/2024 by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Ernakulam Bench whereby the claim of the petitioner seeking compassionate appointment has been rejected.

Facts

2. The brief facts of the case are that the petitioner is the son of late K.Karthikeyan. He died on 25.09.2011, while in service after rendering 28 years, 2 months and 18 days of service. He belonged to OBC community. Soon after the death of the deceased employee, the petitioner’s mother Leena applied for compassionate appointment for the petitioner to Group-C, in the prescribed format. Thereafter, the respondents demanded certain documents which were provided by the petitioner. The petitioner was assured that he would be given employment assistance under the compassionate appointment scheme and since that was not done, being aggrieved, he approached the Central Administrative Tribunal in the impugned Original Application seeking a direction to the respondents to grant compassionate appointment to the petitioner herein. The Original Application was dismissed by the learned Tribunal on the ground that the petitioner had filed the first representation on 04.02.2012 and if the respondent authorities were not considering the same, he ought to have approached the same at the earliest. There is no justification in moving the Tribunal after the lapse of 13 years and therefore, the delay cannot be ignored. The claim of the petitioner has been considered in an objective manner and since he was not found suitable, his case was not considered. Being aggrieved, the petitioner herein had filed the present Original Petition before this Court.

Petitioner’s Contentions

3. The learned counsel for the petitioner contended that there is no question of delay in approaching the Tribunal in as much as he had submitted the claim within time and the same was not considered by the respondent authorities. The learned counsel for the petitioner also contended that the learned Tribunal also failed to come to the conclusion that this case was considered in detail in accordance with Annexure R2(e) and R2(k), but he could not be appointed as he did not secure maximum points considering the number of vacancies available for appointment. Even today, the petitioner is unemployed and needs compassionate appointment. For the aforesaid reasons, the order passed by the learned Tribunal deserves to be set aside. The O.P. needs to be allowed.

Respondent’s contention

4. Per contra, the learned counsel for the respondents opposed the prayer and submitted that the case of the petitioner was considered on several occasions, but due to lower marks, he could not be considered for appointment. Annexure-R2(f) indicates that on 20.01.2018, there were eleven applications to be considered and having regard to the number of vacancies, only four persons could be recommended for appointment. The four persons who got maximum marks out of 100 were recommended for appointment. The petitioner found placed at Sl.No.5 because he got only 24 marks whereas the other four candidates obtained 54, 46, 45 and 44 marks respectively and were recommended for selection.

On all the occasions, the petitioner did not qualify.

4.1 The learned counsel further submitted that the appointment on compassionate ground is not a right as also not regular source of appointment. The learned Tribunal has correctly interpreted the law as well as the policy and came to the conclusion that there is huge delay in approaching the Tribunal as well as the case of the petitioner has been considered on number of occasions where he was not found eligible. Hence, the Original Petition deserves to be dismissed on these grounds.

5. Heard Sri Harish Kumar B, the learned Counsel for the peti