Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 29: Division Bench of High Court comprising Justice Tashi Rabstan and Justice Wasim Sadiq Nargal has held that once candidates had accepted the compassionate appointment and joined on their respective posts, they, at a later stage, cannot claim that they ought to have been appointed on a higher post.
DB further said that an applicant has no right to claim compassionate appointment in a particular class or group. “It is not for conferring status on the family. A candidate for compassionate appointment has no right to any particular post of choice. He can only claim to be considered. The compassionate appointment is not a vested right or an alternate mode of employment. It has to be considered and granted under the relevant rules”, the DB added.
“The object of compassionate appointment is to enable the family of the deceased employee to tide over the sudden financial crisis due to the death of a bread earner which has left the family without any means of livelihood. The basic intent to grant compassionate appointment is that on the death of the employee, his family is not deprived of the means of livelihood”, the DB said, adding “it is meant to provide minimum relief for meeting immediate hardship to save the bereaved family from sudden financial crises due to the death of a sole bread earner”.
This significant judgment has been passed in the Letters Patent Appeal against the judgment dated 05.05.2018 delivered by the Single Judge in SWP No.1920/2015, whereby the Single Judge dismissed the writ petition being lacking in merit.
“Admittedly, compassionate appointments were offered to the writ petitioners, they accepted the offer, as such came to be appointed on compassionate basis as Technician-III in the Power Development Department, Jammu”, the DB said.
The DB while dismissing the LPA observed that the Apex Court has specifically held that the norms prevailing on the date of the consideration of the application should be the basis for consideration of claim for compassionate appointment.
“In the present case, a reference to the relevant rules, which were enforced during the year 2009 to 2013, clearly reveals that entitlement of a candidate to seek appointment on compassionate grounds was only to the post in the lowest rank of the non-gazetted service, subject to the fulfillment of the qualification criteria. Thus, the case of writ petitioners do not fall within the amended provisions of SRO 43, which were brought into effect vide SRO 177 dated 20.06.2014”, the DB said.
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