Ku. Lata Sahu Vs State of Chhattisgarh

1 - State of Chhattisgarh Through It's Secretary, Department of Urban Administration and Development, Mantralaya, Mahanadi Bhawan, Atal Nagar, Nava Raipur, District Raipur, Chhattisgarh

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2 - Director, Directorate of Urban Administration and Development, Indravati Bhawan, Atal Nagar, Nava Raipur, District Raipur, Chhattisgarh

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3 - Secretary, Department of General Administration, Mantralaya, Mahanadi Bhawan, Atal Nagar, Nava Raipur, District Raipur, Chhattisgarh

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4 - Municipal Corporation Raipur, Through Its Commissioner, Corporation Headquarter, Mahatma Gandhi Sadan, Gandhi Chowk, Raipur, District Raipur, Chhattisgarh

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5 - Commissioner, Municipal Corporation Raipur, Corporation Headquarter, Mahatma Gandhi Sadan, Gandhi Chowk, Raipur, District Raipur, Chhattisgarh 6 - Ku. Vaishnavi Sona, D/o Late Shri Sunil Sona, Presently Posted As Peon, Municipal Corporation Raipur, Corporation Headquarter, Mahatma Gandhi Sadan, Gandhi Chowk, Raipur, District Raipur, Chhattisgarh

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ASHUTOSH MISHRA

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7 - Shri Om Manjlekar, S/o Late Smt. Radha Bai Manjlekar, Presently Posted As Peon, Municipal Corporation Raipur, Corporation Headquarter, Mahatma Gandhi Sadan, Gandhi Chowk, Raipur, District Raipur, Chhattisgarh

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... Respondents

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Digitally signed by ASHUTOSH MISHRA Date: 2026.07.15 18:29:08 +0530

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For Petitioner	: Mr. Advocate Verma,	Amrito along with Advocate	Das, Senior Mr. Yashraj
For State/Respondents No.1 to 3	: Mr.	Hariom Rai,	Panel Lawyer
For Municipal Corporation/ Respondents No.4 & 5	: Mr. Advocate Agrawal,	H.B. Agr along with Advocate	awal, Senior Ms. Swati

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(Hon’ble Shri Justice Bibhu Datta Guru)

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Order on Board

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14/07/2026

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By way of the instant petition, the petitioner is challenging the legality, validity and propriety of the order dated 19/05/2025 passed by the Respondent Municipal Corporation, Raipur whereby the private respondents No.6 & 7 have been granted compassionate appointment. The petitioner further sought a direction towards the respondents to grant compassionate appointment to her.

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The brief facts of the case as projected by the petitioner are that the father of the petitioner, namely Late Shri Mishrilal Sahu, was initially engaged as a daily wager and was subsequently regularized as a Safai Karmachari in the Municipal Corporation, Raipur. While serving the Corporation, he died in harness on 08.08.2016 leaving behind his widow, two sons namely Shri Yuvraj Sahu & Shri Rajkumar Sahu and one daughter Ku. Lata Sahu, the present petitioner.

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After the death of the employee, the elder son, Shri Yuvraj Sahu, applied for compassionate appointment. The said application came to be rejected by the Zonal Commissioner vide order dated 10.11.2016 on the ground that the deceased employee was working against a supernumerary post.

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According to the petitioner, the said rejection was without authority and contrary to law, whereas the respondents contend that the said order attained finality as it was never challenged before any competent forum.

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It is the further case of the petitioner that, since she was a minor at the time of death of her father, she could not apply immediately for compassionate appointment. Upon attaining majority and acquiring the requisite educational qualification, she submitted an application for compassionate appointment on 18.09.2018. According to the petitioner, despite repeated representations, her candidature remained pending and was never finally decided.

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The record further reveals that the respondents continued processing the petitioner's claim. She was asked to submit documents from time to time, her willingness was sought for appointment on a Grade-IV post instead of Grade-III, which she accepted, and she was thereafter called for verification of documents in December, 2024 and again in January, 2025.

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The grievance of the petitioner is that although her application has remained pending since 18.09.2018, the respondent Corporation proceeded to grant compassionate appointment vide order dated 19.05.2025 to respondent Nos.6 and 7, whose applications were admittedly submitted during the year 2021. According to the petitioner, the respondents have acted arbitrarily in considering subsequent applicants while ignoring her prior application, despite repeatedly treating her candidature as pending consideration. The present writ

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petition has, therefore, been filed challenging the action of the respondents in appointing subsequent applicants while keeping the petitioner's candidature pending, and seeking consideration of her claim for compassionate appointment in accordance with law.

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Learned counsel appearing for the petitioner would submit that the petitioner's father died in harness on 08.08.2016 while serving as a regular Safai Karmachari in the Municipal Corporation, Raipur, leaving the family in acute financial distress. It is submitted that though the petitioner's elder brother had initially sought compassionate appointment, the said claim was rejected on an erroneous and unauthorized ground that the deceased employee was working against a supernumerary post. According to the petitioner, the said rejection did not extinguish the independent right of the petitioner, who was admittedly a minor at the relevant time. It is further submitted that immediately after attaining majority and acquiring the requisite educational qualification, the petitioner submitted her application for compassionate appointment on 18.09.2018. Thereafter, instead of taking a final decision, the respondents continued to keep the petitioner's candidature pending for several years. During this period, the petitioner was repeatedly called upon to submit documents and representations, was required to furnish her willingness for appointment on a Grade-IV post instead of Grade-III, and was also directed to appear for verification of documents in December, 2024 and again in January, 2025. According to learned counsel, these actions unequivocally establish that the respondents themselves treated the petitioner's claim as a subsisting and

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live claim.

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Learned counsel would further contend that while the petitioner's application dated 18.09.2018 remained pending without any final decision, the respondents proceeded to grant compassionate appointment vide order dated 19.05.2025 to respondent Nos.6 and 7, whose applications were admittedly submitted during the year 2021, much later than that of the petitioner. It is submitted that the action of the respondents in considering subsequent applicants while ignoring the petitioner's prior claim is wholly arbitrary, discriminatory and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. It is also argued that once the respondents themselves continued processing the petitioner's candidature for several years by repeatedly calling her for verification and obtaining her willingness, they cannot subsequently reject her claim on the ground of delay or lapse of time.

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According to the petitioner, the respondents cannot be permitted to approbate and reprobate simultaneously by treating the claim as alive till January, 2025 and thereafter opposing the petition on the ground that the claim had become stale. It is, therefore, prayed that the order dated 19.05.2025, insofar as it ignores the petitioner's prior claim, be quashed and the respondents be directed to consider and grant compassionate appointment to the petitioner in accordance with law.

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Per contra , learned counsel appearing for respondent Nos.4 and 5 would submit that the writ petition is devoid of merit and deserves to be dismissed. It is contended that immediately after the death of the

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petitioner's father, the petitioner's elder brother sought compassionate appointment and the said claim was rejected by the competent authority vide order dated 10.11.2016. Since the said order was never challenged before any competent forum, it attained finality and no fresh claim for compassionate appointment can now be entertained after such a long lapse of time.

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It is further submitted that compassionate appointment is an exception to the normal rule of public employment and is intended only to provide immediate financial assistance to the bereaved family. Reliance is placed upon the decisions of the Supreme Court in Union of India & others v. M.K. Sarkar {(2010) 2 SCC 59} and State of Manipur v. Md. Rajaodin {(2003) 7 SCC 511} to contend that stale or belated claims cannot be entertained and that compassionate appointment cannot be claimed as a matter of right after the crisis has ceased to exist. Learned counsel would also submit that under the Integrated Revised Instructions, 2013 governing compassionate appointment in the State of Chhattisgarh, an application is required to be submitted within the prescribed period and even the maximum period contemplated under the policy cannot exceed five years in exceptional circumstances. Since the petitioner's application was submitted after expiry of the prescribed period, her claim is not maintainable under the policy itself.

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It is further contended that under the applicable scheme, the eldest eligible dependent has the first right to seek compassionate appointment. Since the elder brother's application had already been considered and rejected, the petitioner cannot seek a second opportunity by filing

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another application several years thereafter. Learned counsel would lastly submit that the action of the respondents is fully justified under the governing policy and no legal right of the petitioner has been infringed. It is, therefore, prayed that the writ petition be dismissed.

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I have heard learned counsel appearing for the parties and perused the pleadings and the documents placed on record.

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The controversy involved in the present petition is not with regard to the petitioner's eligibility alone but also concerns the fairness and transparency adopted by the respondent authorities while considering claims for compassionate appointment.

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The undisputed facts reveal that the petitioner's father died in harness on 08.08.2016 while serving under the respondent Municipal Corporation. It is also not in dispute that the petitioner's elder brother had initially sought compassionate appointment and his application came to be rejected vide order dated 10.11.2016. The petitioner, who was admittedly a minor at the time of death of her father, attained majority thereafter and submitted her own application for compassionate appointment on 18.09.2018.

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The principal objection of the respondents is that once the claim of the elder brother stood rejected and attained finality, the petitioner could not maintain a subsequent claim for compassionate appointment. The respondents have also relied upon the judgments of the Supreme Court to contend that compassionate appointment cannot be granted after an inordinate lapse of time, the object of the scheme being to provide

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immediate financial assistance to the bereaved family.

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There can be no quarrel with the settled proposition that compassionate appointment is not a matter of vested right and is only an exception to the normal rule of public employment. Equally well settled is the principle that stale claims ought not to be entertained and that the object of the scheme is to mitigate the immediate financial hardship arising from the death of the employee. The decisions relied upon by the respondents lay down these principles and the same are not open to dispute. However, the issue in the present case has to be examined in the backdrop of the conduct of the respondent authorities themselves.

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The material placed on record demonstrates that even after submission of the petitioner's application in September, 2018, the respondents never rejected her claim on the ground of limitation, non-maintainability or ineligibility. On the contrary, they repeatedly required the petitioner to furnish documents and representations, sought her willingness for appointment on a Grade-IV post in place of Grade-III, accepted such willingness and thereafter called her for verification of documents in December, 2024 and once again in January, 2025. These undisputed facts unmistakably show that the respondents themselves continued to process the petitioner's candidature and treated her application as a live and subsisting claim.

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Once the respondents themselves elected to keep the petitioner's candidature alive for several years and continued to undertake verification of her eligibility, it does not lie in their mouth to contend

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before this Court that the claim had become stale or was barred by delay. Had the respondents been of the opinion that the petitioner's application was not maintainable under the applicable policy or was barred by limitation, nothing prevented them from rejecting the same at the threshold. Instead, by repeatedly calling upon the petitioner to complete the requisite formalities, the respondents created a legitimate expectation that her candidature was under active consideration. What further assumes significance is that the respondents have not disputed that the petitioner submitted her application on 18.09.2018. The pleadings also indicate that respondent Nos.6 and 7, whose appointments are under challenge, submitted their applications only in the year 2021 and were nevertheless granted compassionate appointment vide order dated 19.05.2025. The respondents have not placed any material to demonstrate as to why the petitioner's earlier application was ignored while the claims of subsequent applicants were processed and finalized. No rational basis or objective criteria justifying such differential treatment is discernible from the record.

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In matters of compassionate appointment, although no person can claim appointment as a matter of right, every eligible applicant is certainly entitled to fair, transparent and non-arbitrary consideration in accordance with the governing policy. The respondents, being instrumentalities of the State, are under an obligation to act fairly and uniformly while dealing with similarly situated applicants. Keeping an earlier application pending for years without any final decision and simultaneously extending the benefit to applicants who approached the authorities

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subsequently is an action which does not satisfy the test of fairness and equality embodied in Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

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This Court is, therefore, of the considered opinion that the respondents cannot be permitted to defeat the petitioner's claim on the ground of delay when such delay is substantially attributable to their own inaction and continuous processing of the petitioner's candidature. The respondents having themselves treated the petitioner's application as a live claim till January, 2025 cannot now rely upon the doctrine of delay and laches to deny consideration.

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Having considered the entire facts situation of the case, the respondents are directed to reconsider the petitioner's claim for compassionate appointment strictly in accordance with the applicable policy, treating her application dated 18.09.2018 as a valid pending application and shall pass a reasoned and speaking order after affording due consideration to all relevant facts and the governing policy. The aforesaid exercise shall be completed within a period of sixty (60) days from the date of receipt of a certified copy of this order.

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Though the petitioner has assailed the appointment orders dated 19.05.2025 issued in favour of Respondents No.6 and 7, this Court refrains from expressing any opinion on the validity of the said appointments in the present proceedings. However, the competent authorities are directed to consider the claim of the petitioner independently and pass a reasoned order in accordance with law, keeping in view, inter alia, the fact that the petitioner's claim for compassionate

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appointment was pending and subsisting prior to the applications submitted by Respondents No.6 and 7 seeking compassionate appointment consequent upon the demise of their respective breadwinners.

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Accordingly, the writ petition stands allowed to the above extent.

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SD/-

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SD/- ( Bibhu Datta Guru ) JUDGE

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ashu

Ku. Lata Sahu v. State of Chhattisgarh

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Ku. Lata Sahu v. State of Chhattisgarh

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