KOLKATA: The Calcutta High Court has ruled that even married women, being a member of their paternal family, are entitled to get a state government job on compassionate grounds.
Although a division bench of Justices Debangsu Basak and Shabbar Rashidi delivered the order on Friday, a copy of the order was available only on Saturday morning.
The bench passed the order in a case on a job application made by Rekha Pal, for a compensatory job on land owned by her father for a government project, which was rejected by the West Bengal government since she was married at the time of application.
The land was procured for Bakreswar Thermal Power Station, a project of West Bengal Power Development Corporation Limited, in the Birbhum district of West Bengal.
In 2012, the state government issued a notification announcing jobs to one member of each family whose land was acquired for the project.
Accordingly, Rekha Pal applied for the job. However, the state government rejected the application because she was married at the time of application.
She then approached an erstwhile single-judge bench of Calcutta High Court against the rejection of her application and argued that since after her father's demise she had taken the full- responsibility of her widowed mother, she should be given the job.
The single-judge bench agreed to her argument and in 2014 directed the state government to grant her the job.
However, the state government immediately challenged that order at the division bench of the Calcutta High Court.
Finally, on Friday, the division bench too had upheld the order of the single-judge bench.
In his argument, Pal’s counsel argued that if a widow or divorced woman is entitled to be considered as a member of her paternal family, why should the same not be applicable for a married woman?