IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.8594 of 2007 BALRAM KUMAR SAH, adopted son of late Lal Bihari Sah & his widow Indira Devi (now deceased) permanent resident of village Safiyabad, P.S. Safiyabad, District Munger presently residing at Mohalla Shashtri Nagar, Qr. No. 369/800, P.S. Shashtri Nagar, Town and District Patna … Petitioner Versus 1. THE STATE OF BIHAR through the Secretary and Commissioner, Department of Finance, Govt. of Bihar, Old Secretariat, Patna 2. The Additional Finance Commissioner, Govt. of Bihar, Old Secretariat, Patna 3. The Under Secretary, Finance, Govt. of Bihar, Old Secretariat, Patna 4. The Dy. Secretary, Finance, Govt. of Bihar, Old Secretariat, Patna 5. The Chairman/ Secretary of the Compassionate Appointment Committee, Finance, Govt. of Bihar, Old Secretariat, Patna … Respondents ----------- 2. 6.4.2011 Heard counsel for the petitioner and the counsel for the State. Taking into account that the petitioner claims to be adopted son of late Lal Bihari Sah and Indira Devi, the deceased employee, and had filed an application for appointment on compassionate ground on account of death in harness of Indira Devi, this Court would find it difficult to find any explanation as to the reasons for not considering and deciding such claim of compassionate appointment of the petitioner. True it is that in such consideration the authorities will have to 2 go into the factum of alleged adoption of the petitioner. There is also an impediment in the way of the petitioner inasmuch as there is no registered Deed of Adoption which would lead to automatic presumption of the petitioner being adopted son but the counsel for the petitioner would submit that such factum of adoption can even otherwise be found out from the other contemporaneous documents including the matriculation certificate etc. While this Court would not like to pre-judge the issue but then this much has to be made clear that the head of the office where the mother of the petitioner was working would be under obligation to examine the claim of the petitioner for appointment on compassionate ground in terms of the Government policy and the law laid down by this Court with regard to appointing adopted son alike a natural son provided that the factum of adoption is not in dispute. In that view of the matter, this Court would direct the Principal Secretary of the Finance Department to examine the pending application of the petitioner and if 3 he finds that the petitioner fulfils all the requisite conditions he would send such application with his recommendation to the Compassionate Appointment Committee which then will take its own independent decision. The whole exercise, however, must be completed within a period of six months from the date of receipt/ production of a copy of this order, inasmuch as the date of death of the adoptive mother of the petitioner is 23.8.2005 and the petitioner claims to have filed his application on 17.1.2007 for his appointment on compassionate ground in the prescribed proforma under the Government policy dated 5.10.1991. Let it be noted that this direction for consideration has to be issued by this Court only because the respondents have not filed a counter affidavit leaving this Court in complete darkness as to why the application filed by the petitioner in the month of January, 2007 has remained pending for a period of more than four years. It is, therefore, also made clear that if in the meantime the application of the petitioner has been considered and rejected, there 4 would be no need to reconsider the case and the petitioner in that event may only be intimated with the result of such consideration. With the aforementioned observation and direction, this application is disposed of. (Mihir Kumar Jha,J.) Surendra/