- (1.) The grievance made by the petitioner in the instant petition is that he should be given appointment on the post of Upper Division Clerk under the ex gratia scheme of the Government dated 8.5.1995 (Annexure P-4) instead of appointing him on the post of Lower Division Clerk. It is appropriate to mention that father of the petitioner who was working as Assistant Foreman with the erstwhile Haryana State Electricity Board has expired on 11.12.1996 and the petitioner was given appointment on compassionate grounds on 23.2.1998 on the post of Lower Division Clerk. The petitioner accepted the same and joined on 3.3.1998. Placing reliance on the policy of the State Government concerning compassionate appointment dated 8.5.1995 (Annexure P-4) it has now been claimed that the petitioner should be given appointment on the post which is one step lower than the post held by his deceased father. Accordingly, it has been claimed that since his father was working as Assistant Foreman in the pay scale of Rs. 5000-8000 the next lower pay scale of the post of Foreman i.e. Rs. 4625-7250 which is equivalent to the scale that should be offered to him. Accordingly a direction has been sought that the petitioner be appointed as Upper Division Clerk in the pay scale of Rs. 4625-7250 instead of Lower Division Clerk in the pay scale of Rs. 4000-6000.
(2.) The stand of the respondents in the written-statement is that the appointment offered to the petitioner was in accordance with the instructions dated 8.5.1994 (Annexure P-4). At the time of accepting the appointment he never raised any objection. It is claimed that father of the petitioner was working as Assistant Foreman in the pay scale of Rs. 1400-2600 and the initial scale of Upper Division Clerk has also been the same namely Rs. 1400-2300 and therefore the request made by the petitioner for appointing him as Upper Division Clerk could not be considered.
(3.) After hearing learned counsel for the parties, we are of the considered view that the instant petition is devoid of any merit and is liable to be dismissed. It is well settled that the compassionate appointment cannot be claimed as a matter of right. The petitioner has been appointed on 3.3.1998 as Lower Division Clerk with the object of helping him to tide over the sudden financial crisis created by the death of his father. The post of Lower Division Clerk is a class III post in the pay scale of Rs. 4000-6000. We are further of the view that the initial pay scale of the post of Assistant Foreman and that of Upper Division Clerk is the same i.e. Rs. 1400-2600 and Rs. 1400-3000 respectively. Moreover, the instructions do not go to the extent of imposing an obligation on the respondent that the petitioner must be given appointment on a post carrying the pay scale one step lower than of the petitioner's deceased father was getting. In the case of State of Haryana and others v. Rajiv Deshwal, 2003 10 SCC 275, on which reliance has been placed by the counsel for the petitioner, clause in the instructions dated 8.5.1995 (Annexure P-4) has been interpreted and the same reads as under : "Ex gratia employment shall be confined to Class III and Class IV posts, only irrespective of the status of the deceased employee. Further the compassionate employment being offered shall be atleast one step lower than that of the deceased employee except in cases where the deceased employee was working at the lowest level in the Government." The views expressed by Hon'ble the Supreme Court is explicit from para 2 which is as under : "In our opinion, this interpretation of the said clause by the High Court is erroneous. This clause means that the offer of appointment to the deceased employee's dependent is not to be on a post equivalent to the one which was held by the deceased employee but should be on a lower post by atleast one step. Therefore, in the present case when the deceased employee was Deputy Superintendent of Police, the offering of the post of ASI was not correct. However, as the High Court has found that four posts of Inspectors were lying vacant to which the respondent could have been appointed we do not wish to interfere in this case. Special leave petition is disposed of in the aforesaid terms.";