Compassionate appointment cannot be granted after prolonged delay once the purpose of immediate financial relief is frustrated.

The respondent’s father died in harness on 8 December 2005.

The respondent’s elder brother applied for compassionate appointment, but his application was rejected on 10 July 2017, inter alia, on the ground that no Class IV post was available; he did not challenge that order.

Thereafter, the respondent’s mother allegedly applied for the respondent’s compassionate appointment.

In Writ Petition No. 4523/2017, the High Court found that the application had been returned because the address was incomplete and granted the respondent liberty to submit a fresh application.

The respondent thereafter submitted a fresh application, which was rejected/deferred on 20 February 2020 because he had not passed the CPCT examination; he was granted three years to acquire the requisite qualification.

Instead of obtaining the qualification, the respondent filed Writ Petition No. 13546/2022 seeking consideration under the earlier compassionate appointment policy.

The learned Single Judge directed that, if a Class IV post was available and the respondent satisfied the requirements of the 2018 policy, his case should be considered.

The appellants challenged that direction in the present writ appeal.

1. Whether the learned Single Judge was justified in directing the appellants to consider the respondent for a Class IV post, despite the absence of any application or specific pleading seeking appointment to such a post?

2. Whether compassionate appointment could be directed approximately twenty-one years after the death of the employee, when the respondent’s family had survived for a considerable period and the purpose of immediate financial relief had allegedly ceased to exist?

3. Whether the respondent’s failure to pass the CPCT examination and his failure to pursue the remedy with due diligence disentitled him to a direction for compassionate appointment?

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

The Court relied principally on State of West Bengal v. Debabrata Tiwari, 2025 (5) SCC 712, which held that compassionate appointment must ordinarily be made with a sense of immediacy and that a long lapse of time may demonstrate that the crisis has ceased.

The Court also applied the doctrine of laches under Article 226, namely, that a writ court ordinarily does not assist a tardy, indolent, or acquiescent litigant where delay is unexplained and the original purpose of the relief has become obsolete.

The applicable compassionate appointment policy and the CPCT qualification requirement also governed the respondent’s eligibility.

The Division Bench held that the respondent had not pleaded or applied for compassionate appointment to a Class IV post; the direction issued by the Single Judge therefore granted relief on a basis that was neither part of the respondent’s case nor previously considered by the appellants.

The earlier rejection of the elder brother’s application in 2017, based on the non-availability of a Class IV post, could not by itself establish the respondent’s entitlement to consideration for such a post at a later date.

Further, the respondent’s father had died in 2005 and more than twenty-one years had elapsed. The respondent had also not shown that he made any effort to pass the CPCT examination within the period granted by the appellants.

Applying the principles in Debabrata Tiwari, the Court concluded that the prolonged survival of the family without compassionate appointment indicated that the immediate financial crisis contemplated by the scheme had ceased, thereby frustrating the very object of compassionate appointment.

It held that the learned Single Judge ought not to have directed the appellants to consider the respondent for a Class IV compassionate appointment in the absence of a corresponding application or pleading, particularly after the unexplained lapse of approximately twenty-one years and the respondent’s failure to obtain the required CPCT qualification.

Accordingly, the order dated 12 September 2025 in Writ Petition No. 13546/2022 was set aside, the writ petition was dismissed, and the writ appeal was allowed.