IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.8558 of 2007 Abhijit Kumar Thakur, son of late Uma Shankar Thakur, Resident of Village Amaitha Panapur, Police Station Karja, District Muzaffarpur. -------- Petitioner Versus 1. The State of Bihar through Chief Secretary, Government of Bihar, Patna. 2. The Home Secretary, Government of Bihar, Patna. 3. The Director General of Police, Government of Bihar, Patna. 4. The Commissioner, Darbhanga Range, Darbhanga. 5. The Inspector General of Police, Darbhanga Range, Darbhanga. 6. The Deputy Inspector General of Police, Darbhanga Range, Darbhanga. 7. The District Magistrate, Sarmastipur. 8. The Superintendent of Police, Sarmastipur. ---------- Respondents ----------- 6 1.7.2011 Heard Mr. Pramod Rajpati, learned counsel for the petitioner and counsel for the State. The petitioner, whose date of birth is 5.1.1984, has prayed in this writ application for his appointment on compassionate ground claiming that his father, while working on the post of Constable in Police Department, became traceless on 17.6.1995, whereafter, he could not be found in next seven years and as such, when his death was presumed in view of Section 108 of the Evidence Act, he had filed an application for appointment on compassionate ground but, the same, having been not disposed of till 18.7.2007, he had 2 filed this writ application on 18.7.2007 for a direction to the respondent to consider the case of the petitioner for appointment on compassionate ground. Learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that it was during the pendency of this writ application that an order dated 26.6.2007 was served on him rejecting his case for compassionate appointment and as such, the petitioner has filed I.A. No. 4198 of 2011 assailing the correctness of the order rejecting his claim for compassionate appointment. For the reasons mentioned in I.A. No. 4198 of 2011, the prayer for additional relief of quashing the order dated 26.6.2007 as contained in Annexure-7 to the writ application, is allowed. There are certain revealing features of this case which would go to show that the petitioner would not be entitled for appointment on compassionate ground. The first one is his own ineligibility, inasmuch as, his date of birth is admittedly 5.1.1984 and on the basis of the aforesaid date of 3 birth, he was aged about 11 years and seven months approximately on the date of presumed death of his father. The petitioner, in fact, did not become major in the period of next five years in which the application for compassionate appointment had to be filed. The fact that the petitioner had passed the Madhyama examination only in the year 2005 would go a long way to show that in fact he was not eligible for appointment on the basis of his educational qualification even in next ten years of the date of presumed death of his father. Thus, the petitioner was ineligible for appointment on compassionate ground in the light of the condition imposed in the policy for compassionate appointment, being the Government circular dated 5.10.1991 both on account of his being minor as also not possessing requisite qualification either on the date of presumed death or even in the period of next five years. Reference in this connection may be made to the division bench judgment in the case of Anil Kumar Singh Vs. State of Bihar reported in 1993(1) PLJR 414. That apart, it will be a matter of 4 serious dispute as to whether the father of the petitioner could ever be deemed to be a Government servant dying in harness inasmuch as it is a case of his presumed death on account of his missing since 17.6.95. The father of the petitioner was admittedly missing at least from 17.6.1995 and earlier to that he had been dismissed from service on 13.4.1994 on account of committing some serious misconduct. Such order of dismissal dated 13.4.1994 was of course made subject matter of a writ application by him but before the judgment could be pronounced in his favour by this Court on 14.8.1995, he had already been reported to be missing since 17.6.1995. Thus, the reason given in the impugned order dated 26.6.2007 that the father of the petitioner in terms of the judgment of reinstatement dated 14.8.1995 could never join the service, cannot be questioned as it is an admission of the petitioner that his father was missing since 17.6.1995. The order of reinstatement of the service of the father of the petitioner passed by this Court on 14.8.1995 was itself 5 was hedged with a condition that since the enquiry report in the earlier departmental proceeding leading to his dismissal from service on 30.4.1994 was not served on him, it was still open for the respondents to proceed afresh against him in the departmental proceeding from the stage of enquiry report. AS noted above, the said exercise could never be completed as the father of the petitioner was missing even before the date of delivery of the judgment i.e. 14.8.1995 and as such he could not report on duty so as to become a government servant dying in harness. Appointment on compassionate ground to the petitioner, therefore, in view of the chequered service history of his father, on the basis of whose presumed death alone he could have claimed compassionate appointment, is not permissible in law. This Court cannot shut its eye that a period of sixteen years has elapsed from the date of presumed death of the father of the petitioner. After such a long delay of sixteen years, this Court would not find that 6 the condition of the family of the deceased employee including the petitioner is not still penury. This aspect of the matter has been considered by the Apex Court in the case of Umesh Kumar Nagpal Vs. State of Haryana & Ors. reported in 1994(4)SCC 138 wherein long delay by itself has been held to be a good ground for rejecting the case of compassionate appointment. This Court, therefore, is not required to go into the other disputed question of fact as to whether the petitioner had ever filed an application for his compassionate appointment in prescribed proforma, a plea which has been taken by the Respondents in the supplementary counter affidavit. As a matter of fact, the impugned order dated 26.6.2007 rejecting the claim of the petitioner for his appointment is also not based on the aforesaid ground of his not filing application in the prescribed proforma. As noted above, the impugned order proceeds that the father of the petitioner had never rejoined service after the judgment 7 of the court dated 14.8.1995 and as such, any dependent of such an employee would not be entitled for service, inasmuch as, he became traceless at a time when he was still a dismissed employee of the Police Department. Thus it becomes clear that the claim of the petitioner for his appointment on compassionate ground is based on a very weak foundation, namely being the dependent of a deemed reinstated employee who had never rejoined service and was also deemed to be dead in view of his missing for a period of seven years while he was a dismissed employee. Considering all these aspects, this Court would find no merit in this application and the same is, accordingly, dismissed. Rsh (Mihir Kumar Jha, J.)