Compassionate Appointment Claim Dismissed for Undue Delay and Failure to Establish Immediate Financial Destitution

The applicant’s father, a Sorting Assistant, died in harness on March 17, 2003

After a nine-year delay, the applicant approached the Tribunal in OA No. 1072/2012, resulting in a direction to the respondents to consider his case; however, his claim was rejected on January 28, 2014, on the grounds that the applicant was married

The applicant filed subsequent representations in 2020 and finally filed the present OA on April 13, 2021—seven years after the initial rejection—seeking to quash the 2014 order and obtain a Group-D appointment

The respondents opposed the application on grounds of limitation and the principle that compassionate appointment is intended for immediate financial crisis

1. Whether the Original Application is barred by the law of limitation under Section 21 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985

2. Whether the applicant is entitled to a direction for compassionate appointment 23 years after the death of the government servant

Section 21 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, which mandates that an application must be filed within one year of a final order unless sufficient cause for delay is shown

Principles established in Umesh Kumar Nagpal v. State of Haryana and Tinku v. State of Haryana, which stipulate that compassionate appointment is not a vested right or an alternative mode of recruitment, but a humanitarian concession meant to provide immediate succour to a family in penury.

Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore Ltd. v. Anusree K.B., establishing that such appointments cannot be granted after an inordinate delay (e.g., 14–24 years) as the initial financial crisis is presumed to be over

Under Section 21 of the AT Act, the OA was significantly time-barred as the applicant challenged a 2014 rejection only in 2021 without a condonation of delay application

Applying the "immediate crisis" test from Umesh Kumar Nagpal, the Tribunal reasoned that because the family survived for over two decades without the appointment, they could no longer be considered in an "indigent condition" requiring emergency assistance

The court emphasized that granting relief now would violate Articles 14 and 16 by depriving other genuinely deserving candidates of survival-based appointments

The Tribunal dismissed the O.A. No. 260/00191 of 2021 along with all pending motions