New Delhi: The Madhya Pradesh High Court, in a strictly worded order, has clarified that authorities, such as banks or other government departments, cannot weaponise a deceased employee’s “unsatisfactory service record” to deny compassionate appointments to dependent family members.
Compassionate appointments originate from Article 39 of the Constitution and stem from a Directive Principle of State Policy aimed at providing employment on compassionate grounds to dependent family members of government servants who “die in harness”. This refers to death while still in service or retirement on medical grounds, which leaves their family members without any source of sustenance.
Granting relief to the orphaned son of a late bank employee, a bench of Justice Jai Kumar Pillai noted that dependants applying under such benevolent schemes are already battling severe penury and sudden financial destitution. In such a scenario, subjecting them to mechanical, cryptic, or arbitrary rejections based on extraneous grounds—not explicitly mentioned in the scheme—“cruelly defeats the very objective of the welfare measure and inflicts unwarranted harassment upon vulnerable citizens,” the bench said.
The court was acting on a plea filed by Nikhil Kol, the son of a deceased Union Bank of India employee.
Nikhil earlier challenged a bank decision circa January 2018 that dismissed his claim for compassionate appointment, citing his father’s “unsatisfactory” service record as the grounds. He sought the court’s direction to appoint him as a peon or messenger in the sub-staff cadre—which usually consists of foundational operational staff—starting in August 2016, when his father died. Moreover, he sought monetary and other consequential benefits from such an appointment.
Nikhil’s case
The case dates back to 7 August 2016, when the petitioner’s father, Shankar Prasad Kol, passed away due to a sudden heart attack. He was a regular employee of Union Bank of India, serving as a daftary in Madhya Pradesh’s Rewa district. After completing 22 years of continuous and uninterrupted service at the bank, Shankar died, leaving behind his only son, Nikhil, unemployed and orphaned. Nikhil’s mother had passed away in 2012.
Nkhil, who belongs to the Scheduled Tribe (ST) community, passed his Class 9 examinations in 2014, making him eligible for a position in the sub-staff cadre, according to his plea. He also stated that, as the only son with three unmarried sisters, he bore significant responsibility. The sisters were still in school, leaving him to care for them, his wife, and his child. Shankar had been the family’s sole breadwinner.
In 2017, Nikhil’s application for compassionate appointment was forwarded to the local bank authorities, who repeatedly assured him that he would be appointed shortly. However, after an inordinate and unexplained delay, the Union Bank of India issued an order in January 2018 denying him the appointment, shattering the family’s hopes.
A key reason the bank cited to reject Nikhil’s plea was his father’s “unsatisfactory” service record, despite the absence of any such exclusionary provision or penal clause in the compassionate appointment scheme.
Nikhil’s plea argued that importing such an alien ground to deny survival benefits was highly unjust and legally unsustainable. It also pointed out that no major penalty had ever been imposed on the late employee.
Citing the family’s immense hardships, Nikhil’s plea contended that denying the appointment would defeat the scheme’s very purpose.
What the court ruled
The court noted that, although notice was duly served in 2019, the bank chose not to appear before it. “No vakalatnama has been filed on their behalf, and no reply or return has been placed on record,” the court observed.
Emphasising the gravity of the case, the court said that the condition of the surviving dependants was “highly penurious”, and the delay that had already occurred warranted expeditious adjudication in the interests of justice.
A meticulous scrutiny of the 2018 rejection order revealed that no specific clause in the applicable policy permitted rejection on the basis of the employee’s service record.
The bank, the court said, had completely failed to demonstrate how this alien criterion had been introduced into the decision-making process, given that the prevailing scheme contained no such exclusionary provision.
Expressing surprise at how the late employee’s service record had been weaponised to deny compassionate appointment, the court remarked, “The authorities have totally bypassed the very essence and strict text of their own compassionate appointment policy.”
The court said that Nikhil approached the bank promptly and that the family’s acute destitution was undisputed on record, yet his claim was rejected on wholly extraneous grounds. It, therefore, directed the bank to reconsider his case and issue a reasoned order within 60 days.
In the meantime, the court set aside the bank’s 2018 order and directed it to pay Nikhil Rs 50,000 for the unwarranted harassment and immense hardship it caused him.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)