IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA Letters Patent Appeal No.396 of 2011 In (CIVIL WRIT JURISDICTION CASE 8092/2010) Hari Prasad son of Late Deo Narayan Sahu, resident of village – Bardepur, PS Baluahi, District Madhubani ...Appellant Versus 1. The State Of Bihar 2. The District Magistrate, Madhubani 3. The Block Development Officer, Baluahi, Madhubani 4. The General Manager, P & A, National Project Construction Corporation Ltd., Govt. of India Enterprises, Plot no. 67-68, Sector- 25, Ballabhgarh, Faridabad-4 Haryana 5. The Manager, P & A, National Project Construction Corporation Ltd., Govt. of India Enterprises, Plot no. 67-68, Sector-25, Ballabhgarh, Faridabad-4 Haryana 6. The General Manager, P & A, National Project Construction Corporation Ltd., Govt. of India Enterprises, 3A, Dr. S. N. Roy Road, Kolkata (West Bengal) 7. The Zonal Manager, PMGSY Zone Patna ( Bihar) I.A. S. Colony, Kidwaipuri, Patna 8. The Project ( Unit) Office N.P.C.C. Limited, Bankura (West Bengal) .... ..Respondents ---------------------------------- 11 08-12-2011 Heard learned counsel for the appellant, learned counsel for the respondents no. 4 to 8, National Project Construction Corporation (NPCC) Ltd. and its officials as well as learned counsel for the State. This Letters Patent Appeal is directed against the judgement and order of learned Single Judge dated 22-6-2010 whereby writ petition preferred by the appellant bearing CWJC no. 8092/2010 has been dismissed after holding that no direction could be given for compassionate appointment when the writ petition has been filed after 12 years of death of father of the 2 appellant who was in service of the Corporation at the time of his death. Ordinarily, this court would not have entertained this appeal but on account of averments reiterated in paragraph 5 of the memo of appeal pointing out that during the relevant period when the application of the appellant was pending many others offered appointment on compassionate ground which amounted to hostile discrimination in respect of appellant, we directed the Corporation to place the relevant facts on counter affidavit. Initially, two counter affidavits were filed and in the second counter affidavit appointment letters in respect of several others such as Smt. Kuntala Mathur, Smt. Prabha Sengar, Smt. Anita Pal, Smt. Dipti Basu, Sri Sanjeev Kumar, Smt. Sarita Tomar, Sri Tarkeshwar and Sri Rajesh Kumar made between the year 1998-2004 were brought on record with an averment that those appointments were made in some extra ordinary situations and at that time financial health of the Corporation was in better shape. 3 Whatever be the extra ordinary circumstances, the Corporation was under a legal obligation to consider the pending application of the appellant also in accordance with norms and the application could not have been just kept pending so as to frustrate the very purpose of seeking compassionate appointment. That clearly appears to be the case at hand. We were not satisfied with the manner in which the Corporation has been dealing with the applications for compassionate appointment and, therefore, we granted further opportunity to explain the policy adopted by the Corporation. An additional affidavit dated 14-11-2011 was placed for our perusal. We did not find the stand of the Corporation in the aforesaid additional affidavit satisfactory and, therefore, now an application seeking permission of this court for withdrawing the said additional affidavit has been filed today along with further additional affidavit dated 01-12-2011. In view of prayer made for withdrawal of the additional affidavit dated 4 14-11-2011, that shall not be treated as valid additional affidavit or counter affidavit. In the additional affidavit dated 01-12-2011 statement has been made in paragraph 13 that in view of O.M. dated 09-10-1998 (annexure-B), if compassionate appointment is not possible to be offered to the applicant within 3 years, his case would be finally closed. On that basis only 8 applications preferred by others have been shown to be alive for consideration. The list of those 8 applications is annexed as annexure- F. On carefully going through annexure- B, O.M. dated 09-10-1998, we could not find any provision to the effect that after three years a pending application for compassionate appointment cannot be entertained. Counsels also failed to point out such provision. Even if there had been any such stipulation in annexure-B that would not be relevant in the present case because the issue being examined is that of hostile discrimination or arbitrariness in not considering the case of appellant at all while offering compassionate appointment to others during the period 1998 - 2004. 5 The voluminous counter affidavits do not contain any relevant material to show that case of the appellant was ever considered by the authorities on any criteria which was available for considering claims for compassionate appointment. Annexure-3 to the memo of appeal shows that on 25-08-2008 the Corporation informed the appellant that due consideration would be given to his application as and when vacancies arise in the Corporation. Same stand was taken in another letter to the appellant’s counsel dated 01-12-2009 contained in annexure-4. We find that the Corporation did not follow any settled criteria for granting compassionate appointment. It kept the names of even those persons in the list of pending applications who had crossed the age of eligibility for appointment and cases of some persons were picked up for offering compassionate appointment on one plea or the other. We expect the Corporation to adopt a better procedure which should be transparent and made known to all the employees and pending applicants. That should be done without any delay. So far as the case of the appellant is 6 concerned, since it has not been yet considered by the Corporation, we direct the Corporation to consider the case of the appellant in accordance with the principles applicable between 1998-2004 when cases of others were considered leading to their appointment on compassionate grounds. This exercise should be done at an early date, preferably, within three months. The appeal is allowed to the aforesaid extent. The order under appeal shall stand modified accordingly. No costs. BKS/- (Shiva Kirti Singh, J.) (Shivaji Pandey, J.)