Compassionate appointment cannot be claimed as a vested right after the reasonable period has lapsed.

The applicant’s father, an employee of the Geological Survey of India, died on 10 September 2006. The applicant applied for compassionate appointment on 2 July 2007.

His case was considered by the respondents against compassionate-appointment vacancies for the years 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010–2011, but was not recommended because his merit score was lower than that of the selected candidates.

The respondents stated that the applicant’s case was considered by the Centralised Assessment Committee in January 2018 and by the Review Committee on 1 March 2019, but he was not found sufficiently meritorious.

The applicant thereafter sought a direction for appointment on compassionate grounds before the Tribunal.

1. Whether the applicant was entitled to appointment on compassionate grounds merely because his case had been considered against successive vacancy years.

2. Whether the respondents’ repeated consideration of the applicant’s claim for more than twelve years after his father’s death was consistent with the object and legal principles governing compassionate appointment.

3. Whether the Tribunal should direct the respondents to appoint the applicant on compassionate grounds despite his non-selection on merit and the considerable lapse of time since the employee’s death.

Compassionate appointment is an exception to the general rule of recruitment and is intended to provide immediate financial assistance to the family of a deceased employee to help it overcome the crisis caused by the breadwinner’s death; it is neither a vested right nor a source of employment that may be claimed after an unreasonable delay.

Relying on Umesh Kumar Nagpal v. State of Haryana & Others, JT 1994 (3) SC 525, the Tribunal held that compassionate appointment cannot ordinarily be granted after the lapse of a reasonable period and cannot be exercised as a right at any time in the future.

The Tribunal further observed that, in the Geological Survey of India, consideration in five Centralised Assessment Committee exercises could constitute a reasonable period for assessing such claims.

The applicant’s father died in 2006, and the applicant’s claim was initially made in 2007; therefore, the immediate financial crisis that justified compassionate appointment had substantially lost its legal relevance by the time of the later proceedings.

Although the respondents considered the claim against five vacancy years, the applicant did not meet the applicable merit threshold: he secured 70 points, while the recommended candidates had higher scores ranging from 76 to 83.

The Tribunal held that repeated consideration up to 1 March 2019, more than twelve years after the death, improperly kept the claim alive and was contrary to the limited purpose of compassionate appointment.

Since compassionate appointment is not a vested right and the applicant had not been recommended on merit in any of the relevant vacancy years, no justification existed for directing his appointment.

The Original Application was dismissed, with no order as to costs, and all pending miscellaneous applications, if any, were closed.