Compassionate Appointment is not an Absolute Right and Cannot be Granted After Inordinate Delay.

The petitioner’s father, a skilled labourer in the Bihar State Electricity Board, went missing on 06.08.2002.

A missing report was filed by the petitioner’s mother on 11.08.2002.

In 2010, the Nagar Parishad issued a death certificate, and the mother applied for compassionate appointment and terminal benefits on 25.06.2010.

Following the mother’s death on 04.02.2014, the petitioner applied for compassionate appointment on 04.05.2016.

The District Level Compassionate Committee rejected the petitioner's claim on 27.01.2023, primarily on the grounds of delay, asserting the application was not filed within five years of the presumed date of death.

The petitioner challenged this rejection via a writ of Mandamus.

1. Whether the rejection of the petitioner’s application for compassionate appointment on the grounds of delay was legally sustainable.

2. Whether compassionate appointment can be claimed as a matter of right several decades after the employee went missing/died.

The court primarily applied the principles governing compassionate appointment established by the Supreme Court of India in *Umesh Kumar Nagpal v. State of Haryana & Ors.* (1994), which defines the objective of such appointments as enabling a family to tide over sudden financial crisis.

It further relied on *State of Karnataka v. V. Somyashree* (2021) and *State of UP v. Premlata* (2022), which affirm that compassionate appointment is an exception to the general rule of recruitment under Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution, is not a vested right, and must be governed by the prevailing policy and immediate necessity.

The court reasoned that the fundamental purpose of compassionate appointment is to provide immediate relief to a family facing destitution due to the sudden loss of an earning member.

In this case, the father went missing in 2002, and the family survived for over two decades without such benefits.

The court noted that granting an appointment after such a significant lapse of time would contradict the "immediate hardship" requirement and would essentially create an alternative, unauthorized mode of recruitment bypassing standard rules.

Although the petitioner argued that his 2016 application was within the five-year window of his mother's death or the police report's dated assumption, the court focused on the 24-year gap since the original cause of action (the father’s disappearance), concluding that the element of "immediate financial crisis" no longer existed.

The court found no merit in the petition and sustained the rejection by the Compassionate Committee.

The writ petition was dismissed.