Summary
Compassionate appointment was refused because the applicant’s brother already worked for the State Electricity Board. The governing policy barred assistance to another family member in those circumstances and created only a limited exception for an unsupported widow. The High Court could not extend that exception to a son merely because the employed brother lived separately. The Court set aside the direction to reconsider contrary to the policy and rejected the writ petition.
Issues
- Whether separate residence of an employed brother entitled another child to compassionate appointment despite the policy bar.
- Whether judicial review permitted extension of the policy’s widow-specific exception.
Held
- Paragraph 5(c) of the applicable policy prohibited compassionate assistance to a second family member where another was employed by government or specified public bodies. Its limited exception concerned the widow claiming lack of support from employed children, subject to the prescribed departmental opinions and ministerial decision. (¶¶ 6, 8, 10)
- Compassionate appointment is not a right independent of the governing policy. A direction to consider a son or daughter notwithstanding another family member’s public employment rewrote that policy and exceeded the scope of judicial review. (¶¶ 10, 11, 12)
- Govind Prakash Verma concerned agricultural and casual-painting work on its particular facts and did not govern the undisputed State-undertaking employment here. Separate residence did not justify the impugned direction. (¶¶ 9, 13)
Result
Appeal allowed; the High Court’s impugned directions set aside and the respondent’s writ petition rejected. No costs.