- (1.) The claim of the petitioner for appointment on compassionate ground on account of the sudden death of his father was initially rejected by the competent authority and subsequently the application filed by the petitioner before the learned West Bengal Administrative Tribunal has also been dismissed by the impugned judgment and order dated 8th July, 2009 in the case of O.A. No. 1408 of 2002.
(2.) Challenging the aforesaid judgment and order passed by the learned Tribunal, this writ petition has been filed by the petitioner. Going through the impugned judgment passed by the learned Tribunal, we find that this claim of the petitioner for appointment on compassionate ground was rejected on two-fold grounds, namely, on account of payment of terminal benefits to the family of the deceased employee and also on the ground of long lapse of almost 14 years after the death of the concerned employee, namely, the father of the petitioner herein. From the records, we find that the father of the petitioner was a Class-IV employee in the office of the respondent No. 5 herein and died in harness on July 22, 1995. The prayer was made by the petitioner for employment on compassionate ground on July 22, 1996, that is, within one year from the death of the employee concerned. The respondent authority took long five years to consider the claim of the said petitioner and ultimately by the letter dated September 11, 2001 rejected the prayer of the petitioner on the ground that the said petitioner did not submit any application for employment immediately after the death of the employee concerned. The one year delay on the part of the petitioner was fatal, according to the respondent authorities, while fact remains that the concerned respondent took long five years to consider the said prayer. The claim of the petitioner for appointment on compassionate ground was required to be considered on humanitarian ground along with the rules and procedures as were applicable in this regard.
(3.) The petitioner herein was born on October 8, 1979 and therefore, he was very: much major on the date of rejection of his prayer by the respondent authorities on September 11, 2001 since the said petitioner was almost 22 years old at that time. Immediately after rejection of the prayer by the respondent authorities, an application was filed by the petitioner before the West Bengal Administrative Tribunal in the year 2002 and the same was finally disposed of by the impugned judgment and order dated 8th July, 2009, that is, almost after a period of seven years. In the aforesaid circumstances, we find that the respondent authorities and the learned Tribunal took almost 12 years to finally decide the claim for compassionate appointment of the petitioner herein.;