G.R. ARUNDATHI, D/O. LATE G.S. REVANNA Vs. THE STATE OF KARNATAKA REPRESENTED BY ITS SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, M.S. BUILDING, VIDHANA VEEDHI, BANGALORE - 1, THE BLOCK EDUCATION OFFICER, PRIMARY AND HIGH SCHOOL SECTION, DEPARTMENT OF ED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD the learned counsel for the petitioner, the learned Government Pleader and the learned counsel for Respondent No. 3. The brief facts are as follows:

(2.) THE petitioner's father was employed with the third respondent as Headmaster of the institution managed by the third respondent. He died in harness as on 17.06.2005. The petitioner therefore had made an application seeking appointment on compassionate grounds. The third respondent without providing any opportunity to the petitioner, had issued an endorsement rejecting the request of the petitioner. The petitioner therefore submits that in terms of the Karnataka Civil Services (Appointment on Compassionate Basis) Rules, 1996 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Rules' for brevity), the petitioner had made the application well within the time prescribed and there was a duty cast on Respondent No. 3 to address whether the petitioner was indeed entitled to be appointed on compassionate grounds and if there were circumstances which warranted such appointment. Without taking into consideration the dire circumstances in which the petitioner was placed as her father was the sole bread -winner for her family and in order to bring the family of which the petitioner was reduced in view of her father's untimely death and since the petitioner was qualified to be provided with employment whereby there would be food on the table, the respondents had failed to consider the same and had unfairly rejected the petitioner's application. The petitioner thereafter approached the respondent authorities, to complain of injustice done to the petitioner. The petitioner forwarded further application to the Chairman of the third respondent - Institution requesting that there be a reconsideration of her case. This not having yielded any result, the petitioner is before this Court.

(3.) THE object of providing employment on compassionate grounds, as rightly put by the learned counsel for the petitioner, would be to bring a family, which is faced with the sudden death of the bread -winner of the family, from an abject state of penury and to bring the family out of that state with compassionate appointment, as generally provided. It is not however, a right available to the legal representatives of a deceased employee. If the employer has failed to provide such employment over a period of time and if the family has managed to survive the crisis, the object of providing such appointment on compassionate grounds, is lost. Persons such as the petitioner would be one among the teeming millions who are without employment and without a source of livelihood. The petitioner cannot claim such circumstance as affording a right to be granted appointment on compassionate grounds merely because her father was earlier employed with the third respondent. There can be no such right countenanced. Accordingly, by sheer efflux of time, the object of providing appointment on compassionate grounds is lost. The petition stands dismissed.