Compassionate appointment cannot be claimed decades later; minority creates no indefinite right to appointment.

The applicant’s father, Late Om Prakash, a Gangman with Northern Railway, died in harness on 22 December 1984, when the applicant was approximately one and a half years old.

She claimed to have applied for compassionate appointment in 2001 and to have thereafter made several representations.

The respondents ultimately rejected her claim by order dated 30 June 2023, principally on the ground that the death had occurred approximately 39 years earlier and that compassionate appointment could not be granted after such an extended period.

The applicant filed the Original Application challenging the rejection and seeking consideration for appointment under the applicable compassionate-appointment scheme.

Since the Original Application was filed belatedly, she moved M.A. No. 201 of 2026 for condonation of delay.

She relied upon her minority at the time of her father’s death, her alleged pursuit of the claim, her widowhood, financial hardship, and the collection of necessary documents in July 2025.

The respondents opposed condonation, contending that no satisfactory explanation covering the entire period of delay had been furnished and that the underlying claim was itself impermissibly stale.

Whether the applicant had shown sufficient cause for condoning the inordinate delay in filing the Original Application challenging the rejection of her claim for compassionate appointment?

Whether a claim for compassionate appointment, arising from a death in harness in 1984 and pursued after several decades, could survive consistently with the object and governing principles of compassionate appointment?

The Tribunal applied the settled principles governing compassionate appointment summarized by the Supreme Court in State of West Bengal v. Debabrata Tiwari, AIR 2023 SC 1467 : 2023 SCC OnLine SC 219.

Compassionate appointment is an exception to the ordinary recruitment process and is intended only to enable the deceased employee’s family to overcome a sudden financial crisis; it is not an independent source of recruitment or a vested right enforceable at any time.

Such appointment must ordinarily be considered with immediacy and cannot be claimed after the crisis has passed.

In assessing financial distress, relevant factors include family income, liabilities, terminal benefits, age, dependency, marital status and other sources of income.

The Tribunal further applied the principle that mere departmental representations do not, by themselves, constitute sufficient cause for condoning extraordinary delay, particularly where the substantive claim is itself highly belated.

The Tribunal held that the applicant’s father died on 22 December 1984, while the applicant claimed to have first applied for appointment only in 2001, and that the claim was ultimately rejected approximately 39 years after the death.

Applying Debabrata Tiwari, the Tribunal found that compassionate appointment is designed to provide immediate relief and cannot be used to secure employment after the family’s alleged crisis has ceased to be immediate.

The applicant’s minority at the time of death, widowhood, financial hardship, alleged representations and collection of documents in July 2025 did not explain the entire period of delay or establish sufficient cause for condonation.

The Tribunal also held that the mere assertion of financial hardship could not preserve a claim for compassionate appointment for several decades, particularly when the long lapse of time itself demonstrated that the claim no longer served the scheme’s purpose.

Her minority did not create an indefinite right to seek appointment after several decades.

It held that no sufficient, satisfactory or legally acceptable cause had been shown for condoning the inordinate delay and that the underlying claim for compassionate appointment was inconsistent with the requirement of immediate financial assistance.

Accordingly, M.A. No. 201 of 2026 was rejected, and consequently Diary No. 8865 of 2025 was dismissed.

There was no order as to costs, and all pending miscellaneous applications, if any, were disposed of.