Calcutta HC: Compassionate appointment claim made nine years after the father's retirement fails; delay defeats equity

Summary

The Calcutta High Court has dismissed a writ petition seeking compassionate appointment in the Railways on the ground that the petitioner's father had been a loyal employee, holding that a gap of about nine years between the father's retirement and the first application disentitles the petitioner, and that the petitioner's long delay in coming to court defeats equity. A Division Bench of Chief Justice Ravindra V. Ghuge and Justice Om Narayan Rai, in a judgment written by Justice Rai, upheld the order of the Central Administrative Tribunal, Kolkata Bench, which had found the claim hopelessly belated.

The petitioner's father joined a Class IV post in the Eastern Railway, Howrah Division, in 1944 and retired on 1 March 1977. He had been given an advance increment as loyal staff for working during the 1974 strike. The petitioner's mother applied for his appointment on compassionate grounds in 1986, and he applied himself in the same year, relying on a Railway Board circular of 13 February 1974 that extended the system of compassionate appointment to loyal staff. His first original application, filed in 1989, was dismissed for default in 1990, and he sought its restoration only in 2013. The railway authorities rejected his representation in October 2015, and the Tribunal dismissed his second application on 19 July 2022. He came to the High Court four years later.

The question before the court

Can the Railway Board's 1974 circular on loyal staff support a claim for compassionate appointment, and from what date is the claim reckoned?

Is a claim first made about nine years after the father's retirement tenable under the Railways' compassionate appointment scheme and the Supreme Court's principles?

Does the petitioner's delay in approaching the Tribunal and the High Court bar relief?

What each side argued

For the petitioner: his father was a loyal employee who retired prematurely, so he was entitled to appointment under the 1974 circular. His application was first turned down as spurious on the opinion of the Railway Employees' Union and later found genuine, so the delay was not his fault. The Railways' letter of 14 October 2015 itself says his father retired 'under age limit', which he said meant before superannuation.

For the Railways: the father did not retire prematurely but superannuated on 1 March 1977.

The judgment also records submissions without naming the side: that the petitioner was a minor when his father retired and the first application came in 1986, nine years later; that the father had already been rewarded with an advance increment for being loyal staff; and that a copy of the father's service record was produced in Court to show that his declared date of birth was 29 February 1919 and that he retired on 1 March 1977 on that basis.

The court's decision

The Court treated the writ petition as a challenge to the Tribunal's order of 19 July 2022 even though it lacked a specific prayer, ignoring the technical defect. It called this a unique case because the claim rests on the employee's loyalty. It said that, under the 1974 circular, the date of retirement of the loyal employee is the relevant date for applying the system.

On the law, the Court said that compassionate appointment is an exception to equality in public employment and is not an alternative mode of recruitment. It exists to help a family pushed into sudden hardship. It relied on the principles collected in the Supreme Court's decision in Canara Bank v. Ajithkumar G.K., including that it is a concession and not a right, that an application must be made immediately or within a reasonable period, that it is not meant to provide endless compassion, and that courts cannot confer it out of sympathy.

Applying these, the Court noted that the first application came about nine years after the father's retirement. That the family survived for nine years supports an inference that it was not in penury. The petitioner's minority was not enough, since the scheme must be followed strictly. No scheme contemporaneous with the 1974 circular was produced. On the Court's query, the petitioner's counsel produced a document of 14 May 1979 which referred to a Railway Board letter of 30 April 1979 giving instructions on compassionate appointment. As quoted by the Court, that letter let a case for the son or daughter of an employee who died in harness be kept pending, while the child was a minor, only until the child turned 18, and for only five years after which the claim lapsed. The General Manager could relax the five-year limit only in the priority case of employees who died or were permanently crippled in the course of duty. The petitioner's father did neither, and the application was not made immediately, so the Court held the petitioner was not eligible under the scheme even if it applied to him.

On delay, the Court said the petitioner was unreasonably lax: his first application was dismissed for default in 1990 and he did not seek restoration for twenty-three years, and he came to the High Court four years after the 2022 order without explanation. The Court cannot rescue the indolent, and delay defeats equity. Whether the father retired prematurely, and the date of birth shown in his records, no longer mattered, since the result would be the same.

Order: the Tribunal's order called for no interference. The writ petition was dismissed with no order as to costs.

Provisions referred to

Article 14, Constitution of India

Article 16, Constitution of India

Railway Board circular of 13 February 1974 (loyal staff)

Railway Board letter of 30 April 1979, as referred to in a document of 14 May 1979 (compassionate appointment instructions)

Official source: High Court at Calcutta. The PDF above is a copy from an open dataset of the court's public records.

This summary is prepared for general assistance only. It may contain errors and is not legal advice — rely on the full judgment.

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