The Hindu : New Delhi News : Compassionate jobs after medical retirement valid

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Sunday, Aug 17, 2008
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Compassionate jobs after medical retirement valid

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutional validity of employment on compassionate grounds of spouses and children of government servants who retire on medical invalidation.

Such appointments will not violate Articles 14 (equality before law) and 16 (equality of opportunity in matters of public employment), said a Bench consisting of Justices R.V. Raveendran and L.S. Panta.

The appointment could not be confined to cases of employees who died in harness and could also be available to others, “provided it does not perpetuate hereditary appointments or is discriminatory in nature,” the Bench said quashing an Andhra Pradesh High Court judgment, which held such appointments illegal.

Exception to rule

“When compassionate appointment of a dependent of a government servant who dies in harness is accepted to be an exception to the general rule, there is no reason or justification to hold that an offer of compassionate appointment to the dependent of a government servant who is medically invalidated is not an exception to the general rule,” said Justice Raveendran, writing the judgment.

The Bench said: “In fact, refusing compassionate appointment in the case of medical invalidation, while granting compassionate appointment in the case of death in harness, may itself amount to hostile discrimination.

“Where a person is permanently incapacitated due to serious illness or accident and his services are consequently terminated, the family is thrown into greater financial hardship, because not only does the income stop but also there is considerable additional expenditure by way of medical treatment as also the need for an attendant to constantly look after him. Though generally death stands on a higher footing than sickness, it cannot be gainsaid that the misery and hardship are more in cases of medical invalidation involving total blindness, paraplegia, serious incapacitating illness, etc.”

The Andhra Pradesh government introduced a scheme for providing compassionate appointment, but it was restricted to cases where an employee retired on medical invalidation at least five years before attaining the age of superannuation.

Date of reckoning

The issue before the full Bench of the High Court was whether the ‘five-year leftover service’ should be reckoned from the date of application by the government servant or from the date of sanction of retirement. It was argued that any delay in processing the application might result in reduction of the leftover service to fewer than five years and consequential denial of job.

However, the full Bench, without addressing the question, took up for consideration whether compassionate appointment on grounds of medical invalidation was permissible under Article 16 and ruled that it was not valid. The present appeal by V. Sivamurthy and others is against this judgment.

The apex court upheld both the government’s policy decision and also the constitutional validity of compassionate appointments on medical invalidation.

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