CUTTACK : The Orissa High Court has held that rejection of an application of a married daughter for compassionate appointment under Rehabilitation Assistance Scheme is plainly arbitrary and violates fundamental rights guaranteed under Articles 14, 15, and 16(2) of the Constitution of India.
The court said, “The yardstick for extending the benefit of compassionate appointment should be dependency of the dependents on the deceased government servant and the marital status of dependent should not be an impediment for his/her consideration on compassionate ground to provide support to suffering family on account of loss of an earning member in the family.”
The single judge bench of Justice SK Panigrahi passed the ruling in a judgment in the case of one Seemarani Pandab who had applied for appointment under the Rehabilitation Assistance Scheme against her deceased father. Her father had died while in service as PET in CRS High School at Tihidi in Bhadrak district. The authorities had rejected her application citing an August 30, 2010 government circular which prohibits married daughters from availing the benefit of such recruitment on compassionate grounds. While Seemarani had challenged it, advocate Chiranjeev Bidyabhushan presented arguments on her behalf.
Justice Panigrahi set aside the order rejecting her application and directed for considering the application from the day her application was considered for the first time in 2013. “Since about eleven years have passed when the applicant applied for appointment under Rehabilitation Assistance Scheme and many years have been spent in litigation, in the interest of justice and fair play, the age of the petitioner shall not be a factor to consider her for a suitable job,” Justice Panigrahi directed in the order.
He further observed that a daughter after her marriage does not cease to be the child of the father or mother and is obliged to maintain their parents. A daughter cannot be allowed to escape her responsibility on the ground that she is now married.
“Therefore, such a policy of the state government disqualifying, a ‘married’ daughter and excluding her from consideration apart from being arbitrary and discriminating is a retrograde step of state government as welfare state, on which stamp of approval cannot be made by this court,” he ruled.