CIVIL WRIT JURISDICTION CASE No.14717 OF 2007 ******* Against the Order dated 17.08.2007 passed in O.A. no. 661 of 2005. ******* SMT.JOSPHINA TOPPO----------------Appellant Versus THE UNION OF INDIA &ORS---------Respondents ******* For The Petitioner : Ms.SUSHMITA MISHRA For The Respondents : M/s Sudhir Singh (ASST.SG)& Sarvadeo Singh, CGC. ******* P R E S E N T THE HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE BARIN GHOSH THE HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE C.M.PRASAD Barin Ghosh & C.M. Prasad, JJ. The petitioner applied for grant of compassionate appointment on the ground that her husband, a Central Government employee, died in harness. There is no dispute that the Central Government has propounded a scheme for giving compassionate appointments. This scheme has been altered by the Central Government from time to time. It, ultimately, decided that at the best five 2 percent of the direct recruitment quota can be filled up by compassionate appointees. The direct recruitment quota, no doubt, varies in different establishments of the Central Government. It, therefore, made clear that only five per cent of the direct recruitment quota of the establishment, in which the deceased was working, can be supplied by compassionate appointment. It prescribed that consideration for filling up five per cent of such quota can be made within the year in which the death occurred. Subsequently, upon consideration of the representation that direct recruitment may not be had in the year of consideration, in 2003 the Central Government altered the limit of one year for consideration of a prayer for compassionate appointment. In such circumstances, before 2003, within the year of the death, compassionate appointment 3 could be had within the ceiling of five per cent of direct recruitment quota. The respondents have disclosed that in the year of death there being sixteen direct recruitment quota, one vacancy was available for supplying through compassionate appointment. They have stated that the said vacancy has been supplied by a person in whose case the death occurred in 1994. This is a shocking state of affair. The said action is nothing but burying the Government decision in the burial ground and granting appointment on compassionate ground on whims and caprices of the Authorities of the Central Government. 2. Nothing has been brought on record to suggest when the period of one year, as mentioned in the policy, would commence and when the same would come to end. In the normal circumstances, a Government year 4 should correspond to its financial year. The husband of the petitioner having died on 28th April, 2000, claim for compassionate appointment of only those, whose spouse or father died in between 01st April, 2000 to 31st Mach, 2001, could only be considered for supplying the vacancy available for compassionate appointees in the year 2000- 2001, which, as aforesaid, has been supplied by a compassionate appointee whose husband or father died in 1994. The records produced by the respondents, however, suggest that during the financial year 2000- 2001 the first death occurred on 14th April, 2000 and the second death was that of the husband of the appellant, which occurred on 28th April,2000. In the circumstances, in view of the policy of the government, for the vacancy available in the year 2000-2001 the petitioner was the second candidate and 5 not the first candidate and, therefore, despite holding that supplying of the said vacancy by a person not competent to supply the same, we are not in a position to give relief to the petitioner. The writ petition, accordingly, stands disposed of with cost of twenty thousand rupees to be paid to the petitioner by the respondents in view of the fact that they not only created a faux pas in the matter of giving appointment but also after various contradictions produced before this court the relevant facts and materials upon which the decision could be rendered. (Barin Ghosh,J.) (Chandra Mohan Prasad,J.) Patna High Court, The 25th August, 2008. AAhmad/NAFR.