HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE OF ANDHRA PRADESH THE HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE SANJAY KUMAR WRIT PETITION NO. 210 OF 2005 Friday, the Eleventh Day of December, Two Thousand and Nine Between Zamir Ur Rahiman Petitioner AND Vice Chairman & Managing Director, Girijan Cooperative Corporation Limited, Visakhapatnam Respondent THE HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE SANJAY KUMAR WRIT PETITION NO. 210 OF 2005 ORAL ORDER: The petitioner is the son of Mohd. Faizul Rahaman, a Senior Assistant in the Asifabad Branch of the Girijan Cooperative Corporation Limited, Visakhapatnam, the respondent herein. The petitioner’s father died on 24.3.2001 while in service. The petitioner claims to have made an application on 1.12.2001 seeking appointment on compassionate grounds, but to no avail. He claims eligibility for appointment to the post of Clerk, Typist or Steno Typist. He seeks a declaration that the said inaction is illegal and arbitrary and also a consequential direction to the Corporation to consider his case for compassionate appointment as per his representation dated 01.12.2001. In its counter affidavit, the respondent Corporation admitted that the petitioner’s father died in harness and that the petitioner had submitted a representation seeking compassionate appointment. However it is the stand of the respondent Corporation that about 120 such applications made by the dependants of deceased employees are pending with it and the same had been forwarded to the District Collectors concerned as there were no vacancies available in the respondent Corporation. It is stated that all the G.Os. and instructions issued by the Government would not be automatically applicable to the respondent Corporation and would have to be approved and adopted by the respondent Corporation. It is further stated that the respondent Corporation had previously provided compassionate appointments but owing to the ban on recruitment imposed in the year 1994 and the downsizing of the staffing pattern, no compassionate appointments were made thereafter. Details were furnished about the downsizing of the staffing pattern by implementation of voluntary retirement schemes. The respondent Corporation therefore submitted that it was not possible to consider the petitioner’s case for compassionate appointment owing to its financial constraints and downsizing of the staff. The learned counsel for the petitioner placed reliance on the judgment of the Supreme Court in Syed Khadim Hussain V s . State of Bihar and Others ([1]) wherein the Supreme Court was dealing with a case where the widow of an employee had submitted an application for appointment on compassionate grounds on 02.04.1993 and though the same was within time, it was rejected on the technical ground that it was not in the prescribed proforma. The subsequent application made by the son of the employee was rejected on the ground that he was under-aged at the time of making the application. The Supreme Court issued a direction to the respondent to consider the application of the widow of the employee for appropriate appointment. It is however to be noticed that the above judgment was rendered in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case as recorded therein and did not lay down any general proposition of law. It is also to be noticed that the Supreme Court has consistently held that ‘compassionate appointment’ was not a mode of recruitment and that the same was only a measure to alleviate the immediate plight of the family of the deceased employee, which had lost its breadwinner. By its very nature, such appointment has to be temporally proximate to the date of the death of the employee. If sufficient time is allowed to lapse, even a legitimate claim for compassionate appointment would be defeated. In the present case, the petitioner’s father died as long back as in the year 2001. That being so, it would not be proper for this court to direct appointment of the petitioner on grounds of compassion at this late stage. It is however to be noticed that the Government itself had come forward with a policy in the year 2001 under G.O. Ms. No. 36, Public Enterprises (III) Department, dated 5.9.2001 providing for the payment of ex- gratia/compensation in lieu of compassionate appointment to the dependants of the deceased employees of State Level Public Enterprises. It is not known whether the said G.O. has application to the respondent Corporation, as the learned counsel for the respondent Corporation stressed that unless such G.Os. and instructions were adopted by the Board of the respondent Corporation, they would have no applicability to the employees of the Corporation. Given the facts and circumstances of the case, the interest of justice would be sufficiently served by directing the respondent Corporation to consider whether the petitioner can be paid ex-gratia/ compensation in lieu of compassionate appointment as per the policy applicable to the respondent Corporation. This exercise shall be completed within a period of two months from the date of receipt of a copy of this order and the result thereof shall be communicated to the petitioner. The writ petition is accordingly disposed of with the above direction, but in the circumstances of the case without costs. __________________ Justice Sanjay Kumar December 11, 2009 Copy within a week //BO// MAS. [1] (2006) 9 Supreme Court Cases 195