IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.18106 of 2008 Rajiv Ranjan ------------ Petitioner Versus 1. The Union Of India through the Secretary Postal Department, Government of India, New Delhi 2. The Director General of the Postal Department, Government of India, Indian Daak Bhawan, New Delhi 3. The Chief Post Master General, Bihar, Circle, Patna 4. The Senior Superintendent of Post Office, Patna Division, Patna -4. ------------ Respondents --- For the petitioner: Mr. Arun Kumar No.1, Advocate For the respondent nos.1 to 5 : Mr. Sudhir Singh, Asst. S.G. --- P R E S E N T Hon'ble the Chief Justice And Hon'ble Mr. Justice Kishore K. Mandal Dated, the 15th December, 2008 We heard the counsel for the petitioner and perused the impugned order. The counsel for the petitioner would submit that merely because the petitioner‟s survived after the death of his father, despite no financial means, it cannot be said that he is not entitled to appointment on compassionate ground. He would further submit that the delay occurred due to judicial process and for that the petitioner cannot be blamed. The counsel would, thus, submit that the Central Administrative Tribunal (for short, „the Tribunal‟) was not justified in rejecting the original application. 2. Shyam Bihari Singh (petitioner‟s father) died in harness in the year, 1999 while working as Sub-Postmaster, 2 Lohianagar under Patna Postal Division. The petitioner made an application to the concerned authority for his appointment on compassionate ground, which came to be rejected by the authority on 27th August, 2001. He challenged the order dated 27th August, 2001 before the Tribunal. The Tribunal directed the concerned authority vide its order dated 21st March, 2002 to examine the case of the petitioner afresh and dispose of the same by a speaking order in accordance with law. In the light of the direction given by the Tribunal, the case of the petitioner was re-considered and vide office order dated 11th March, 2003, his claim for appointment on compassionate ground was rejected being not covered by the guidelines governing compassionate appointment. The concerned authority held that annual income of the family from agriculture and other source is Rs.12,500/-; the applicant has his own house and that the deceased employee had not left social liabilities, like, marriage of daughter and education of minor children. More over, it was also found that in Bihar Circle there was no vacancy under stipulated ceiling of 5% of vacancy under compassionate quota. 3. The petitioner challenged the office order dated 11th March, 2003 by filing original application before the Tribunal being OA No.765 of 2005. Since the application was barred by time, the petitioner also made an application for condonation of delay (MA. No.602 of 2005). The Tribunal considered the matter on merit also, 3 although the original application was barred by time and delay was not found to have been explained, and held that there was no miscarriage of justice by denial of appointment on compassionate ground. This is how the Tribunal considered the matter in para -8 of the order: “When a application has been found not to be maintainable, then the Courts/Tribunals should not enter into merits of such an application. However, in order to find out as to whether or not such miscarriage of justice would occur if the Misc. Application is not allowed, we have at the beginning of this order noticed the grounds on which the prayer for compassionate appointment was rejected which are two folds; namely, the financial condition of the family did not justify that and , secondly, no vacancy for compassionate appointment in the Circle was available under 5% quota of total vacancies which could alone be filled up by appointment on compassionate ground.” 4. The order of the Tribunal dated 6th December, 2005 was challenged by the petitioner by filing a writ petition before this court being CWJC. No.4143 of 2006. The said writ petition was dismissed by the Division Bench of this Court on 13th September, 2007 by observing thus: “The employee admittedly died in 1999 and till date the family survived. No case has been made out that the family was hand to mouth and it was a case of penury nor it is established that the prescribed quota of vacancy was available at the time of death of the father of the applicant.” 5. Despite the fact that earlier writ petition being CWJC. No.4143 of 2006 has been dismissed by this court on 13th September, 4 2007, the present writ petition has been filed challenging the order dated 6th December, 2005, passed by the Tribunal. 6. In our considered view, this writ petition is nothing but an abuse of the process of the court. Once the order dated 6th December, 2005 passed by the Tribunal disposing of OA. No.675 of 2005 and MA. No.602 of 2005 came to be dismissed by this court on 13th September, 2007, there was neither any occasion nor justification for the petitioner to file a fresh writ petition. As a matter of fact, we thought of imposing exemplary costs on the petitioner for having abused the process of the court, but since the matter related to appointment on compassionate ground, we left the matter at that. We, however, emphasize that it is not open to a litigant to challenge the same order time and again, once challenge to such order has already been negatived by this court. 7. Appointment on compassionate ground is an exceptional mode of recruitment. The object is to provide immediate financial support to the dependant members of a deceased employee, who have been left with no financial support for survival and livelihood. Obviously, such an appointment has to fall within the parameters and the guidelines framed by the government for that purpose. In the present case, the petitioner has been found to be not covered by those guidelines for various reasons which we have already indicated above. 5 8. Writ petition does not deserve to be admitted; it is dismissed in limine. R. M. Lodha, CJ. Kishore K. Mandal, J. Neyaz/-