Compassionate appointment is not a vested right and depends on demonstrated financial hardship.

The appellant’s father, a Government servant, died in harness on 22 September 2009.

The appellant applied for compassionate appointment, but the District Compassionate Appointment Committee rejected his claim on the ground that his elder brother was employed in Government service and the family was not in financial hardship.

The appellant unsuccessfully challenged that rejection in a writ petition and a Letters Patent Appeal.

He later relied on the reconsideration and approval of Santosh Kumar’s similar claim, and sought reconsideration of his own claim; the learned Single Judge dismissed his writ petition.

The appellant appealed, asserting that his employed brother lived separately and did not support the family, while the State relied on the earlier rejection and the absence of demonstrated financial hardship.

Whether the appellant was entitled to compassionate appointment, or reconsideration of his claim, despite the earlier rejection and the employment of his elder brother.

Whether the subsequent approval of Santosh Kumar’s claim required similar treatment of the appellant.

Public employment is ordinarily governed by the equality and equal-opportunity requirements of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution; compassionate appointment is a narrow exception to that rule, not a vested or automatic right.

In Director of Treasuries in Karnataka v. Somyashree, 2021 (12) SCC 20, the Supreme Court held that no aspirant can claim compassionate appointment as of right.

In Umesh Kumar Nagpal v. State of Haryana, 1994 (4) SCC 138, the Supreme Court explained that compassionate appointment is intended to enable a family left in penury and without means of livelihood to meet the sudden crisis caused by an employee’s death; the authority must assess the family’s financial condition, and the employee’s death alone does not confer entitlement.

The Court found that the competent authority had assessed the appellant’s claim and rejected it because his elder brother was employed and the family was not facing financial hardship; that rejection had already survived the appellant’s earlier challenges.

The Court held that Santosh Kumar’s subsequent approval did not establish an automatic right to appointment for the appellant, whose claim remained subject to the applicable assessment of financial need.

It also relied on the passage of sixteen years since the father’s death, during which the appellant had survived while pursuing litigation, as supporting its conclusion that he had other means of livelihood.

Finding no error or perversity in the Single Judge’s order, it dismissed the Letters Patent Appeal as devoid of merit.