R.V. KRISHNAPPA Vs. KARNATAKA ELECTRICITY BOARD, BANGALORE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) COMPASSIONATE appointments cannot be equated with compensatory, substituted or in lieu of deceased employee's services. Compassionate appointment is conferred on account of fellow -feeling or sorrow for the suffering of another, as pity or mercy. Such appointments are re sorted to in exceptional circumstances of personal reasons in a given case. This Court and the Administrative Tribunals cannot confer benediction impelled by only sympathetic consideration. Law is acknowledged to be the embodiment of all wisdom, and justice according to law is a principle as old as the seas on the earth. The Apex Court in Martin Burn Ltd. Vs. The Corporation of Calcutta, AIR 1966 SC 529 observed : "A result flowing from a statutory provision is never an evil. A Court has no power to ignore that provision to relieve what it considers a distress resulting from its operation. A statute must of course be given effect to whether a Court likes the result or not". In Life Insurance Corporation of India Vs. Mrs. Asha Ramachandra Ambekar and another, AIR 1994 SC 2148 it was held that the Court should endeavour to find out whether a particular case in which sympathetic considerations are to be weighed falls within the scope of law and disregardful of law, however hard the case may be, should not be done.

(2.) IN the background of what is noted herein above we are called upon to decide in this petition, "the question whether the dependent member of the family of a deceased employee is entitled for an appointment on compassionate grounds in spite of two other major members who are living separately are employed either with the same employer or anywhere else". This question of law has been referred to us in view of the two different decisions of the Single Bench of this Court. One being Susheela B. Bhakta Vs. Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation, ILR (1995) KAR 551 , and the other case is Srikanth Vs. Chief Engineer, Karnataka Electricity Board, ILR (1995) KAR 2271 . In Susheela B. Bhakta's case, supra it was held : "Keeping in view the law as now laid down by the Supreme Court, in my opinion, the respondents could not have refused the request of the petitioners for appointment on compassionate ground merely because one of the sons of the deceased is already in employment of the Corporation, who according to the petitioners had separated from the family long before the death of the deceased employee. For appropriately dealing with an application for grant of appointment on compassionate ground it is incumbent upon the authorities to ascertain by holding an appropriate enquiry as to whether the family comprised of the dependents of the deceased employee had any income from any source to sustain their livelihood, and if it is found that but for a job being offered to one of the eligible dependents their family cannot tide over the crisis, compassionate employment should be given to the eligible dependent. Mere employment of one of the sons of the deceased cannot clinch the issue of granting compassionate appointment, if on facts it is found that he had separated from the family of the deceased even during his life time, because in such a situation it cannot be said that he was still a helping hand to the family". And in Srikanth's case, supra it was held : "..... It is evident that compassionate appointment is given to one of the members of the deceased family to tide over the sudden economic crisis facing the family on the sudden demise of the bread -winner in the belief that he would look after the family which was being done by the deceased and not as a hereditary right. If one or more members of the family are already employed, it cannot be said that the family is penurious. In that view of the matter, the fact that two brothers of the petitioner got employment during the life time of the deceased father and that they are residing separate makes no difference and disentitles the petitioner from claiming appointment on compassionate grounds .......

(3.) AS noted earlier compassionate appointments cannot be sought as a matter of right. The Supreme Court in Life Insurance Corporation of India's case, supra, held that appointment on compassionate grounds could not be made contrary to the instructions issued for such appointments. In that case it was held that as the relevant instructions did not contemplate appointment when one of the members of the deceased family was gainfully employed, the Court could not direct the appointment to be made contrary to such instructions.