Non-communication of a compassionate appointment order warrants reasoned reconsideration after hearing the appointee.

The applicant’s father, Late Mohammad Ramzan Parray, an Assistant Lineman in the Jal Shakti Department, died in harness. The applicant applied for compassionate appointment under the Jammu and Kashmir Compassionate Appointment Rules, 1994, notified by SRO 43 of 1994.

His case was processed and, after character and antecedent verification, the General Administration Department sanctioned his temporary appointment as Class-IV/MTS (Roller Attendant-II), Divisional Cadre, Kashmir, in the Public Works (R&B) Department, by Government Order No. 65-JK(GAD) of 2024 dated 8 January 2024. The qualification requirement was relaxed under Rule 7 of SRO 43 of 1994.

The appointment order required the applicant to report within 21 days, failing which the appointment would stand cancelled ab initio. The applicant contended that the order was never communicated to him and that he became aware of it only after approximately six months.

When he thereafter approached the respondents and completed the requisite formalities, he was not permitted to join on the ground that the stipulated 21-day period had expired.

During hearing, he requested that the Original Application be treated as a representation and that the respondents be directed to decide it. The respondents raised no objection to this course.

1. Whether the applicant’s request to be permitted to join pursuant to the compassionate appointment order dated 8 January 2024 should be considered despite the alleged expiry of the 21-day joining period, particularly where the applicant asserts that the order was never communicated to him?

2. Whether the respondents should reconsider the applicant’s claim by treating the Original Application as a representation, after affording him an effective opportunity of hearing and considering the applicable rules, documents and relevant facts?

The Tribunal applied the Jammu and Kashmir Compassionate Appointment Rules, 1994, notified through SRO 43 of 1994, including Rule 7, under which the qualification requirement had earlier been relaxed for the applicant.

It also applied the principles of natural justice, particularly the requirement that an affected person be given an effective opportunity of hearing before an adverse decision is maintained or acted upon.

The Tribunal further relied on administrative-law requirements that a competent authority consider relevant materials and pass a comprehensive, reasoned and speaking order.

No final determination on the merits, constitutional claims, or entitlement to appointment was made; all questions of fact and law were expressly left open.

The Tribunal noted that the respondents had already sanctioned the applicant’s compassionate appointment but that the applicant disputed having received the appointment order and asserted that he approached the authorities promptly after learning of it.

Since the parties agreed that the matter could be addressed administratively as a representation, the Tribunal did not adjudicate whether the applicant’s failure to join within 21 days was attributable to him or resulted from non-communication by the respondents.

Instead, it directed the competent authority to examine that specific contention, consider the documents annexed to the Original Application, hear the applicant, and assess the matter under the applicable rules and law.

The Tribunal also directed sympathetic consideration on humanitarian and equitable grounds, particularly because the respondents had already taken a decision extending compassionate appointment to the applicant.

It was directed to be treated as a representation, and the respondents were ordered to consider and decide the applicant’s request to join pursuant to the appointment order dated 8 January 2024, subject to the applicable rules, regulations and law.

The applicant was to be afforded an effective opportunity of hearing, and the respondents were specifically required to examine his claim that the appointment order had not been communicated to him.

The exercise was to be completed within eight weeks from receipt of the Tribunal’s order by passing a comprehensive, reasoned and speaking order.

All questions of fact and law were left open, and the parties were directed to bear their own costs.