M RAVIKUMAR S/O LATE N MAHADEVAIAH Vs. UNION OF INDIA MINISTRY OF PERSONNEL PUBLIC GRIEVANCES AND PENSION, DEPARTMENT OF PERSONAL AND TRAINING, NEW DELHI, REPRESENTED BY ITS SECRETARY AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD the learned counsel for the petitioner and the respondents.

(2.) IT is the case of the petitioner that he is the eldest son of one N. Mahadevaiah, who was in service with the second respondent as a picker at the Shimoga District Office of the second respondent The father of the petitioner is said to have died while in harness on 26.10.2001 leaving behind his three sons including the petitioner apart from the petitioner's sister and his mother. The petitioner is said to be a B.Com and LL.B. graduate and had made an application seeking appointment on compassionate grounds immediately after the death of his father. Pursuant to which the petitioner was called upon to furnish certain particulars and all of which had been submitted by the petitioner promptly. The District Manager of the second respondent had forwarded the application to the Zonal Office of the second respondent at Chennai. The petitioner after waiting for a considerable time and not having received, any response had approached the fourth respondent, who had passed an order dated 137.2006 rejecting the case of the petitioner for appointment on compassionate grounds. It was intimated that such a decision was taken since there was a policy decision of the respondents not to consider the applications beyond three years from the date of the order, Since the petitioners application was dated 18.2.2002, the same did not merit consideration and it was accordingly rejected. It is in this background that the petitioner is before this Court.

(3.) THE petition is resisted by the respondents who have filed statement of objections to contend that the petitioner has no vested right in seeking to be appointed on compassionate grounds. It is the settled legal position that it cannot be claimed as a matter of right and it is neither compensatory nor compulsory. The guidelines insofar as appointment on compassionate grounds have been laid down by the Apex Court, which amongst other things is that the appointment in public bodies should be made with a single object that such appointment is to enable the family of the deceased employee to tide over the sudden crisis of having test a bread winner but that object would be lost with efflux of time. Since the petitioner's application was at a point of time when there was no vacancy and as such it could not be accommodated and by the time the application could be considered much time had elapsed and hence, the very object of providing appointment on compassionate grounds is lost. It is in this background that a policy decision was taken by the respondents to consider only those applications where it would be necessary in provide succour to a family, which has lost its breadwinner. It is in that vein the applications, which were more than three years old from the date of the impugned order were to be ignored. It is secondly pointed out that the family of the deceased -employee had been conferred with terminal benefits, which were in the area of Rs. 4,78,360/ - apart from an annual pension, which would amount to Rs. 24,000/ - in addition having been provided, it could not be said that the family was in dire straits and had to be provided employment forthwith, which in any event, was not a vested right and was not capable of being afforded to the petitioner at the relevant point of time.