Prolonged family survival extinguishes the immediacy required for compassionate appointment.

The petitioner’s father was employed as a Driver with the Gramin Vidyut Sahakari Samiti Maryadit, Nowgaon, and died in harness on 21 September 2009.

The Samiti was subsequently taken over/merged with the erstwhile M.P. Electricity Board on 15 August 2010.

Following the introduction of a compassionate-appointment scheme in 2013, the petitioner’s mother initially pursued a claim, but the Managing Director stated that the Samiti’s merger proceedings were pending.

The petitioner thereafter applied for compassionate appointment in 2015.

His claim was rejected by order dated 30 January 2019 on the ground that, on the date of his father’s death, the deceased was an employee of the Samiti and not of the M.P. State Electricity Board/its successor company.

The petitioner challenged the rejection under Article 226 of the Constitution and sought quashing of the order and a direction for compassionate appointment.

Whether the petitioner was entitled to compassionate appointment under Clause 1.2 of the 2018 compassionate-appointment policy, despite his father having been employed by the Gramin Vidyut Sahakari Samiti and having died before its merger with the M.P. Electricity Board.

Whether the petitioner’s claim was liable to be rejected on account of delay and the loss of the immediate financial-crisis rationale underlying compassionate appointment.

The Court applied Article 226 of the Constitution and the settled principle that compassionate appointment is an exception to the ordinary rule of recruitment under Articles 14 and 16, intended only to relieve the family of a deceased employee from an immediate financial crisis; it is neither a vested right nor a mode of hereditary or regular appointment.

Relying on The State of West Bengal v. Debabrata Tiwari, the Court held that compassionate appointment must be sought and granted with immediacy and ordinarily cannot be claimed after a prolonged lapse of time.

Under State of Gujarat v. Arvindkumar T. Tiwari, the claim must conform to the applicable rules or scheme and depends upon the financial condition of the deceased employee’s family.

Under Secretary to Government, Department of Education (Primary) v. Bheemesh @ Bheemappa, compassionate appointment is not automatic and the applicable scheme must be determined with regard to the scheme’s terms and the circumstances governing the claim.

The Court also relied on Steel Authority of India Ltd. v. Gouri Devi, State of J&K v. Sajad Ahmed Mir, and related authorities, which hold that substantial delay defeats the object of compassionate appointment.

Clause 1.2 of the 2018 policy applied only to employees of the M.P. State Electricity Board/company who died in harness between 15 November 2000 and 10 April 2012.

The Court found that the petitioner’s father was not an employee of the M.P. Electricity Board/company when he died on 21 September 2009; he was then employed by the separate Gramin Vidyut Sahakari Samiti, which was merged only later, on 15 August 2010.

Consequently, the express eligibility condition in Clause 1.2 of the 2018 policy was not satisfied, and the later merger could not retrospectively convert the deceased into an employee of the Board/company on the date of death.

Independently, the petitioner applied in 2015, approximately six years after the death, and the matter was adjudicated after approximately fourteen years had elapsed.

Applying the immediacy and financial-distress principles governing compassionate appointment, the Court held that the family’s survival for such a considerable period demonstrated that the urgent purpose of the scheme had been exhausted.

Granting appointment at that stage would impermissibly treat compassionate appointment as a vested or hereditary right.

It further held that the prolonged delay had extinguished the requisite sense of immediacy and frustrated the object of compassionate appointment.

The rejection order was therefore upheld, no direction for compassionate appointment was granted, and the writ petition was dismissed.