Compassionate appointment cannot be claimed after an inordinate, unexplained delay.

The petitioner’s father, a regular Pumpman employed by the Raipur Development Authority, died in harness on 8 October 1999, when the petitioner was 11 years old.

The petitioner asserted that his mother applied for compassionate appointment and that he later made representations in 2017, 2018 and 2019; he alleged that the authorities informed him of rejection only in 2020.

The respondents disputed proof of the alleged 2019 representation and objected that the writ petition, filed more than 26 years after the employee’s death, was barred by delay and laches.

Article 226 prescribes no limitation period for filing a writ petition, but the Court’s discretionary jurisdiction ordinarily requires a litigant to approach it within a reasonable time; unexplained delay and laches may justify refusing relief.

Compassionate appointment is intended to provide immediate assistance to a family facing financial hardship following an employee’s death; it is not a vested right or a windfall to the deceased employee’s kin, and cannot ordinarily be claimed after an inordinate lapse of time.

The Court relied on Sushma Gosain v. Union of India, (1989) 4 SCC 468, on the need for compassionate employment to address the family’s immediate distress.

The Court relied on the Division Bench decision in Ankit Kumar Navik v. State of Chhattisgarh and Others, which it described as rejecting compassionate appointment after a long delay.

The Court found that the petition was brought more than 26 years after the employee’s death and that the petitioner had not satisfactorily explained that delay.

The assertion that rejection was communicated only in 2020 did not, in the Court’s view, explain the subsequent delay in approaching it; nor was there an acknowledgment or receipt establishing that the claimed representation had been submitted.

Given the purpose of compassionate appointment—relief from the immediate financial crisis—and the prolonged delay, the Court considered that the circumstances justifying such relief no longer survived.

It also found no exceptional circumstance warranting exercise of its discretionary writ jurisdiction.

The writ petition was dismissed in limine.