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Passage of time cannot be an excuse to deny compassionate appointments

The Supreme Court has ruled that claim of compassionate appointment under the scheme of a particular year cannot be decided in view of a subsequent scheme that came into force much after the claim was made.

Justices R Banumathi and TS Thakur ruled this while upholding a High Court ruling to allow a related petition against Canara Bank.

It directed the bank to consider the claim according to its own scheme in vogue in 1993 when death of the employee concerned occurred.

The court rejected the bank’s contention that ‘dying in harness scheme’ is a non-statutory scheme and is in the form of a concession and it does not create a vested right in favour of the claimant/respondent.

The bank had argued that compassionate appointment is justified when granted to provide immediate succour but cannot be granted on the passage of time.

In all the cases that the court considered in a batch, the employee concerned died about two decades ago. The High Court was not justified in directing the bank to reconsider the claim of the respondent.

The bank also cited a scheme formulated by the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) on February 2, 2005, based on the guidelines issued by the Centre.

By virtue of this, banks scrapped compassionate appointments and introduced the new scheme of ex-gratia payment. The contention was that the new scheme of 2005 applies to all pending applications for appointments on compassionate ground.

According to the new scheme, they are only entitled to ex-gratia payment in lieu of compassionate appointment.

“The main question is which of the two — the 2005 scheme providing for ex-gratia or the one in vogue in 1993 providing for compassionate appointment — is applicable to the respondents,” the court said.

It was here that it mentioned the Jaspal Kaur case where it was ruled that the claim of compassionate appointment under the scheme of a particular year cannot be decided in the light of the subsequent scheme that came into force much after the claim.

The court observed that the 2005 circular is of the nature of an administrative/executive order and cannot have retrospective effect so as to take away the right accrued to the respondent in the scheme of 1993.

Also, the 2005 scheme providing only for ex-gratia payment stands superseded by the scheme of 2014 which has revived the scheme providing for compassionate appointment.

As on date, the scheme in force is to provide compassionate appointment. Under these circumstances, the bank is not justified in contending that the application of the respondent cannot be considered in view of passage of time.

 Article referred: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/banking/passage-of-time-cannot-be-an-excuse-to-deny-compassionate-appointments-supreme-court/article7244953.ece

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