The 2023 amendment retrospectively protects compassionate appointments made to Revenue Clerk posts before its enactment.

The petitioner was appointed on compassionate grounds as a Revenue Clerk (Rajaswa Karamchari) by the District Magistrate, Darbhanga, pursuant to the recommendation of the District Compassionate Appointment Committee, vide Memo No. 814 dated 1 June 2018. He was posted at Alinagar Block and continued in service

In 2021, the Revenue and Land Reforms Department directed Collectors to act in accordance with law on the basis that compassionate appointment to the post of Rajaswa Karamchari was not permissible under the Bihar Revenue Clerk Cadre Rules, 2011. Consequently, the Collector modified the petitioner’s appointment and adjusted him to the post of Lower Divisional Clerk.

The petitioner challenged that action in CWJC No. 1973 of 2022, which was allowed, and the matter was remanded for consideration after giving him an opportunity of hearing. Thereafter, the Collector rejected the petitioner’s representation by Memo No. 755 dated 22/25 July 2022.

A subsequent writ petition was disposed of with liberty to file separate petitions, leading to the present proceeding.

During its consideration, the Court examined whether the Bihar Revenue Clerk Cadre (Amendment) Rules, 2023, which introduced compassionate appointment to the post, could protect the petitioner’s 2018 appointment.

Whether the Bihar Revenue Clerk Cadre (Amendment) Rules, 2023, introducing compassionate appointment to the post of Rajaswa Karamchari, applied to or protected the petitioner’s appointment made in 2018?

Whether the Collector’s decision rejecting the petitioner’s representation and the departmental communication treating his original appointment as impermissible were legally sustainable?

The Court applied the Bihar Revenue Clerk Cadre Rules, 2011, framed under the proviso to Article 309 of the Constitution, as amended by the Bihar Revenue Clerk Cadre (Amendment) Rules, 2023.

The 2023 amendment inserted Rule 7(iii), permitting dependants of government servants who died in service to be considered for compassionate appointment against available direct-recruitment vacancies, and added a proviso to Rule 13 prescribing their relative seniority.

The Court relied on the doctrine of relation back, under which a later legal act may, in appropriate circumstances, be treated as operative from an earlier date.

For this principle, it relied on Delhi Jal Board v. Mahinder Singh, (2000) 7 SCC 210, where exoneration in disciplinary proceedings was held to relate back to the date of initiation of proceedings, and on Ram Niwas Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh, 2024 0 Supreme (Allahabad) 1012.

The Court also treated the express provision concerning the seniority of compassionate appointees as indicating legislative recognition of earlier compassionate appointments.

The Court accepted that the 2011 Rules did not expressly provide for compassionate appointment to the post of Rajaswa Karamchari when the petitioner was appointed in 2018.

However, it held that the 2023 amendment, particularly the provision regulating the seniority of compassionate appointees, demonstrated that the rule-maker was aware that such appointments had been made earlier.

Applying the doctrine of relation back, the Court treated the later statutory recognition of compassionate appointment as sufficient to protect the petitioner’s original appointment.

It further observed that, since Rule 13 placed compassionate appointees below direct recruits appointed in the same calendar year, the amended framework contemplated and accommodated compassionate appointees rather than treating them as wholly impermissible.

On that basis, the Collector’s decision and the departmental communication, insofar as they invalidated the petitioner’s original appointment, were held unsustainable.

It set aside the Collector’s Memo No. 755 dated 25 July 2022 and the Revenue and Land Reforms Department’s Letter No. 184(4) dated 13 May 2022, insofar as they concerned the petitioner.

The authorities were directed to treat the petitioner as continuing in service as Rajaswa Karamchari with effect from 1 June 2018 and to calculate and pay any arrears within four months from production of the judgment.