Married, Separately-Living Brother of KSRTC Employee Ineligible for Compassionate Job Under Circular Despite Employee’s Wife’s Death: Karnataka HC

Veeresh Mantappa Lolasar, a driver employed by the Corporation, died in harness on 21 September 2023.

His wife had predeceased him and they had no children.

His mother applied for compassionate appointment for his brother, who was married and lived separately with his own family.

The Corporation rejected the application because the brother was not an eligible dependent under its governing Circular.

The Single Judge quashed the rejection and directed the Corporation to appoint the brother; the Corporation appealed.

The Corporation’s Circular defines eligible family members by reference to the deceased employee’s marital status and the prescribed dependency and co-residence conditions.

For a married male employee, the specified eligible dependents are the widow and children; a dependent brother or sister residing with the employee is included in the category for an unmarried male employee.

Compassionate appointment is an exception to the ordinary rules of public employment, intended to provide immediate relief to a distressed family; it is not a right based merely on relationship.

Courts cannot expand the eligibility criteria or rewrite the governing policy on equitable or sympathetic grounds.

The deceased employee was married, and the later death of his wife did not convert him into an unmarried employee for purposes of the Circular.

His brother was married, lived separately and did not meet the Circular’s definition of an eligible dependent.

The brother’s affidavit undertaking to care for their mother could not cure that ineligibility or create a policy-based entitlement to public employment.

The Single Judge therefore erred by allowing equitable considerations to override the Circular’s express terms.

It set aside the Single Judge’s order and sustained the Corporation’s rejection of the compassionate-appointment claim.

The Court clarified that its decision did not prejudice any other benefit to which the deceased employee’s legal heirs might otherwise be entitled under law.