CHENNAI: Compassionate appointment and right to inherit property are neither correlated nor can be equated in any manner, the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court has surmised.
Merely because an illegitimate child has been put on a par in the question of inheritance by specific and statutory provisions under the Hindu Marriage Law, its benefit cannot be extended to burden an employer when the employer specifically has disallowed such a benefit to successors, Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana said in her ruling.
Compassionate appointment was not a property which could be considered for alienation and could be bequeathed. The property of a person was governed by law, customary or a statutory, whereas the service and benefits arising out of services were governed by the frame of the contract of service or the rules governing the service of the employees and by the scheme, framed by the employer.
The compassionate appointment depended solely on the frame of contract between the employer and employee and could not be made an issue to be governed by personal law when the employer had not provided so, the judge said while dismissing a writ petition from M Muthuraj, challenging the orders of the Thoothukudi SP and the DGP rejecting his plea for a job.
According to the petitioner, his father P Malaiappan died on April 8, 2008 in an accident while working as an SI. He is survived by the petitioner Muthuraj, two daughters and two wives. Originally, the father married Saroja, the elder sister of the petitioner’s mother. As Saroja could not bear children, Malaiappan married the younger sister.
The petitioner submitted that the law relating to compassionate appointment, especially with reference to dependents, should be read with the provisions available in Sec. 16 of the Hindu Marriage Act, which legitimised children born to a couple whose marriage may not be legally valid. The children were entitled to inherit the property of the parents. The same logic must be made applicable in his case also, the petitioner contended.