GAYADIN SUKHADEV YADAV Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE applicant No. 1, while working as Group 'C employee, as Passenger Driver in the grade of Rs. 5500 -9000, was declared medically unfit for categories A -1, A -2, A -3, B -1, B -2 and B -3 but was declared fit for C -1 and was medically decategorized by the Chief Medical Superintendent on 24.8.1998. According to applicant No. 1, the alternate equivalent suitable post in lower medical category was not available, therefore, the applicant was offered a post eight grades below in Group 'D'. Hence, the applicant No. 1 declined to accept the same. The applicant, thereafter, wrote a letter to the Divisional Railway Manager dated 20.11.1998 requesting, inter alia, that if Divisional Authority is not in a position to offer the applicant with an alternative job of his previous status in the pay scale of Rs. 5500 -9000, then he may be allowed to retire from service with assurance to appoint his ward on compassionate ground in terms of Railway Board's letters dated 22.9.1998 and 3.9.1998. In the letter dated 20.7.1999 the applicant submitted that he took voluntary retirement on 2.3.1999 after being declared unfit on 24.8.1998. In the said letter he requested that his son, i.e., the applicant No. 2, may be given appointment on attaining the age of majority and oblige. The date of birth of applicant No. 2 being 9.12.1986, he attained majority on 9.12.2004 and he passed the 12th Standard High School Examination on 7.6.2005 and also passed trade test in the trade of electrician on 31.8.2008, while filing the Original Application in 2009, the applicant No. 2 was studying in B.A. Part -II. The applicant has challenged the communication dated 20.12.2005 which says that the applicant submitted his application for compassionate appointment after a period of five years four months of being medically decategorized. As per extant rules for appointment on compassionate ground, the wards of medically decategorized employees could be considered within five years from the date of medical decategorization. It was further mentioned in the said letter that in the two cases cited by the applicant, the applications for compassionate appointment were made within a year of their medical decategorization. The applicant made his first application, after being medically decategorized, on 20.11.1998 requesting to register the name of the applicant No. 2, i.e., his son. The papers were processed in the Office of D.R.M., Nagpur, on 20.7.1999. Therefore, the applicant No. 1 contends that he requested for compassionate appointment of his son within one year.

(2.) THE applicants have filed an M.P. 2053/2009 for condonation of delay. The letter which has been impugned in this O.A. is dated 20.12.2005 and the O.A. has been filed on 16.2.2009. The grounds taken by the applicants are, inter alia, that the applicants, after receiving the initial rejection, vide letter dated 21.6.2005, the applicants obtained, under the Right to Information Act, a noting dated 1.6.2005 and on learning that the reason given was not in tune with the Railway Board guidelines, the applicant No. 1 preferred an appeal, which was rejected on 20.12.2005. The applicant, thereafter, represented to the General manager on 9.1.2006 and again on 24.12.2007.

(3.) IN the case of medical decategorization, i.e., those cases in which an employee becomes medically unfit for the post held at present but is fit to perform the duties of an alternative suitable post in lower medical category, the request for appointment on compassionate ground to an eligible ward will not be admissible, even if the employee chooses to retire voluntarily, on his being declared medically decategorized. Such an employee may then either be continued in a supernumerary post or allowed to retire voluntarily if he so desires but without extending the benefit of appointment on compassionate ground to a ward.