Madras High Court observes compassionate appointment schemes can violate Articles 14 and 16, upholds rejection of claim

The respondent’s father, Balasubramanian, a B.T. Assistant in a Government Higher Secondary School, died in service on 16 October 2011.

The respondent, the third legal heir, applied for compassionate appointment in January 2012 and again in 2014. His request was rejected on the grounds that his elder brother was employed with Indian Bank, Royapettah Branch, Chennai, and that the family was not in indigent circumstances. The respondent’s appeal was also rejected.

The writ court allowed his challenge by order dated 1 August 2022, leading the State to file the present writ appeal.

Whether the respondent was entitled to compassionate appointment merely because his father died while in service, despite the competent authority’s finding that the family was not in indigent circumstances.

Whether the employment of the respondent’s elder brother in Indian Bank justified rejection of the respondent’s claim for compassionate appointment.

Whether the delay in processing and rejecting the respondent’s application affected his claim, particularly where the alleged penurious circumstances had ceased with the passage of time.

Compassionate appointment is a concession and not an absolute or constitutional right; it must be granted strictly in accordance with the applicable scheme and only to relieve the immediate financial crisis caused by the employee’s death.

The relevant consideration is whether the deceased employee’s family is unable to maintain itself and is in genuinely penurious or indigent circumstances.

Public employment is ordinarily governed by the constitutional requirements of equality of opportunity under Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution, while Article 335 requires consideration of the claims of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes consistently with administrative efficiency.

Courts must therefore avoid granting compassionate appointment on misplaced sympathy and must balance the relief claimed by the deceased employee’s family against the rights of other eligible candidates seeking public employment through the regular constitutional process.

The Court held that the respondent’s application had to be assessed on the basis of the family’s actual financial condition, rather than on the fact of the employee’s death alone.

The competent authority had evaluated the circumstances and concluded that the family was not indigent, particularly because the respondent’s elder brother was employed in Indian Bank.

Although the respondent contended that his elder brother lived separately and had not supported the family since 2015, the Court accepted the authority’s assessment and found no sufficient basis to substitute its view.

Further, the prolonged period between the death in 2011 and the adjudication of the claim supported the inference that any immediate financial hardship had ceased through the passage of time.

The Court consequently found that the writ court had improperly extended compassionate appointment despite the absence of established penury.

It held that the respondent had no enforceable right to compassionate appointment because the competent authority had found that the family was not in indigent circumstances and the claim was not supported by the scheme’s underlying objective.

The order dated 1 August 2022 in W.P. No. 26139 of 2021 was set aside; the writ appeal was allowed, the connected miscellaneous petition was closed, and there was no order as to costs.