Dayawati and Another vs Union of India and Another

A.K. Sikri, J.—Petitioners filed this writ petition and vide this petition, petition- er No. 2 seeks appointment on compassionate basis on the ground that after his father''s death, as per rules of the bank, petitioner No. 2 is entitled to appointment on compassionate ground. It is the case of the petitioner No. 2 that after his father had fallen sick and became physically handicapped he moved an application dated 5th December, 1991 seeking appointment for his son i.e. petitioner No. 2. It was followed by another letter dated 4th February. 1992 whereby father of petitioner No. 2 requested for voluntary retirement as well as appointment of his son. This application for voluntary retirement was accepted and he was relieved in the year 1995. Father of petitioner No. 2 died on 30th December, 1995. Petitioner No. 2 kept on making representations for appointment on compassionate ground and when respondent-bank did not accede to the request of petitioner No. 2 that present petition was filed on 2nd March, 1998.

Along with the counter affidavit respondent-bank filed copy of the scheme for appointment on compassionate ground. The salient features there- of reads as under :-

"The benefit of compassionate appointments as applicable to dependents of deceased employees may be extended to the dependents of the officers/employees who are incapacitated by accidents or serious ailments like paralysis, cancer, blindness, etc., while in service, and are compelled to leave the service before their normal retirement age. This will also apply to employees whose services have been terminated by the Bank on medical grounds. This is subject to the following provisions.

The benefit would not be extended to a case where the employees has retired on or after attaining the age of 55 years.

The application for appointment should be ordinarily received immediately on the retirement of an employee and should in no case be entertained after sixty days of the date of cessation of service by such employee.

Before the proposal for appointments under this scheme is submitted to the Managing Director for consideration, the employee concerned should be examined by a specially constituted Medical Boards detailed below and its opinion about total disability of the employee for continued effective service in the bank should be obtained and forwarded along with the proposal."

It is stated in the counter affidavit that application dated 5th December, 1991 was never received by the respondent-bank. Father of petitioner No. 2 requested for appointment of the son on compassionate ground vide letter dated 10th March, 1992 (Annexure P-IV of the writ petition) and the same was rejected by the respondent-bank on the ground that father of petitioner No. 2 had attained the age of 55 years on 12th January, 1992 and Therefore, petitioner No. 2 cannot be given appointment on compassionate ground. Although it is contended by petitioner No. 2 that application was infact made on 5th December, 1991, in view of the categorical statement in the counter affidavit and particularly in view of the order dated 7th December, 1994 wherein mention is made only to the application dated 4th February, 1992 it cannot be said that, application was made on 5th December, 1991. In any case, request of the petitioner was rejected way back on 7th April, 1974 and the petitioner have filed this writ petition only in the year 1998 i.e. almost after four years when the said application was rejected by respondent-bank. This petition thus suffers from delays and laches also. It has been repeatedly held by Supreme Court that no person has right to get appointment on compassionate ground and the main objective of giving appointment is to bring out the family from misery to which it may be lead to due to sudden demise of the concerned employee. It is almost eight years since the application for appointment on compassionate ground was made and Therefore at this stage no direction can be given for considering the case of petitioner No. 2 for appointment on compassionate basis especially when the case of petitioner No. 2 is not covered by the scheme framed by the respondent''s bank. Accordingly, the writ petition is dismissed.