Compassionate appointment cannot be granted after prolonged delay once the immediate financial crisis has passed.

The appellant’s father, a Chowkidar under Chanpatia Police Station, died in harness on 12 October 2009, leaving behind his wife and two minor sons.

As the appellant was then a minor, his mother initially sought compassionate appointment for the deceased employee’s younger brother; those applications were rejected by the Compassionate Appointment Committee in 2012 and 2016 because the brother of a married deceased employee was not treated as a dependent under the applicable scheme.

After the appellant attained majority and passed the matriculation examination, his mother applied on 21 August 2020 for his compassionate appointment. The application was rejected/returned on the ground that it had been filed beyond the prescribed period of five years from the employee’s death.

The appellant’s writ petition was dismissed by the learned Single Judge on 26 April 2023, relying principally on Umesh Kumar Nagpal v. State of Haryana, (1994) 4 SCC 138.

The Division Bench condoned the 170-day delay in filing the appeal and proceeded to decide the appeal on merits.

Whether the appellant could claim compassionate appointment approximately seventeen years after his father’s death, notwithstanding the delayed application and the prescribed five-year period?

Whether the earlier rejection orders of 2012 and 2016, and the subsequent rejection dated 15 May 2023, entitled the appellant to any relief when those orders had not been challenged?

Whether the decision in Syed Khadim Hussain v. State of Bihar, (2006) 9 SCC 195, required consideration of the appellant’s claim for compassionate appointment?

Compassionate appointment is an exception to the ordinary rule of public employment and is intended only to enable the bereaved family to overcome the immediate financial crisis caused by the death of its breadwinner; it is not a vested right, an alternative mode of recruitment, or a right to appointment at any time in the future.

Relying on Umesh Kumar Nagpal v. State of Haryana, (1994) 4 SCC 138, the Court held that compassionate employment cannot ordinarily be granted after a reasonable period or after the financial crisis has subsided.

The Court also applied Central Coalfields Ltd. v. Parden Oraon, (2021) 16 SCC 384, which reiterates that compassionate appointment cannot be granted after a significant lapse of time because its purpose is immediate financial succour.

The applicable administrative scheme prescribed submission of an application within five years of the deceased employee’s death.

Syed Khadim Hussain was distinguished as a decision rendered on its peculiar facts, where the applicant had attained majority during the pendency of the application.

The Court found that the appellant’s father had died in 2009, whereas the application seeking the appellant’s appointment was made only in 2020, and approximately seventeen years had elapsed by the time of decision.

The prolonged delay was inconsistent with the limited purpose of compassionate appointment—to provide immediate relief to a family in distress—and could not be converted into a reservation of public employment for a dependent.

The Court further noted that the 2012 and 2016 orders rejecting the proposed appointment of the appellant’s uncle, as well as the order dated 15 May 2023 rejecting the appellant’s claim, had not been challenged.

The reliance on Syed Khadim Hussain was misplaced because the factual circumstances there were materially different and did not establish a general right to compassionate appointment after a long delay.

Accordingly, the Single Judge’s reliance on Umesh Kumar Nagpal was held to be legally correct.

Finding no illegality in the Single Judge’s order dated 26 April 2023, the Court dismissed the Letters Patent Appeal.

The application for condonation of 170 days’ delay was allowed.