Appointment to employment on compassionate grounds cannot be claimed as a matter of right, the Supreme Court ruled while deciding a case of a daughter’s application for appointment 14 years after her father’s death in 1995. The woman’s father was an employee of Kerala-based Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore Ltd. More than 27 years have passed since the death and the court was deciding an appeal filed by the company against the Kerala High Court’s decision dated 31. to consider the daughter’s compassionate employment application.
A bench of Justices MR Shah and Krishna Murari overturned the high court verdict in their order passed on Friday saying, “Appointment on compassionate grounds is a concession, not a right. Compassionate appointment is an exception to the general rule of appointments in public services, the judges observed, adding that such a concession is made to ensure that the dependents of a person dying in harness are not left destitute or without means of livelihood.
The appeal filed by the company said that when the father of the respondent daughter died in 1995, he was not eligible for compassionate appointment as his wife was employed with the Kerala State Health Department. At the time, the daughter was a minor. After 14 years, when she became a major and got married in 2013, the daughter applied for compassionate appointment. The company rejected her application on 12 February 2018 on the grounds that her name was not on the list of dependents. She was further informed that the widow or son or unmarried daughter of a deceased employee can be employed under the policy. She challenged the rejection of her application in the Kerala High Court.
The Supreme Court said: “The whole purpose of providing compassionate employment is to enable the family to overcome a sudden crisis. The aim is not to give such a family a seat, let alone a seat held by the deceased.”
A single judge of the Kerala High Court on 22 January 2021 directed the company to consider the daughter’s application. When the company challenged this order before the Division Bench, it reiterated the order of the Single Judge Bench and compelled the company to seek relief in the High Court. The Supreme Court found the two High Court orders “unsustainable” and said, “If such appointment is made now and/or after a period of 14/more than 24 years, the same will be against the object and purpose for which compassionate appointment is provided.”
The court noted that compassionate appointments provide an exception to the equal opportunity standard in public employment matters. “Both the single judge and the High Court senator committed grave error in ordering the petitioners to rehear the case of the respondent for compassionate appointment. The impugned judgment and order passed by the High Court are unsustainable,” the court said.
