LAKSHMANAN, C. J. - (1.) ALL the above appeals were filed by the State of Rajasthan against the common judgment dated February 2, 2000 passed by a learned Single Judge of this Court, partly allowing the writ petitions filed by the respective respondents. WRIT APPEAL NO. 635/2000
(2.) THE respondent Rajendra filed the Writ Petition No. 4432/98 to declare Rule 10 (3) of the Rules of 1996 to be arbitrary and violative of the provisions of the Constitution and to quash the communication dated 18. 10. 97 and 7/8. 1. 98 and consequently direct the respondents to consider the application of the respondent petitioner for suitable appointment after taking into consideration his qualification in accordance with the Rules with consequential benefits. THE Respondent's father died on 4. 5. 1995. At the time of his death the respondent was about 15 years of age and was student of 8th standard. He passed out the Senior Secondary Examination in 1996. THEreafter he submitted an application seeking appointment on compassionate ground in terms of the proforma appended to the Rules of 1996. THE application was turned down by the 2nd appellate herein on the ground that as per Rule 10 (3) of the Rules of 1996. THE applicant was required to submit the application within 45 days from the date of death of deceased which the respondent failed to submit, his application could not be considered and the same was rejected on 18. 10. 97. THE learned Single Judge after hearing arguments in various connected writ petitions, allowed the writ petitions including the present one in the following terms: "in view of the above discussion, the writ petitions stand disposed of in the following terms: (i) THE dependants of the deceased Government servants who died before promulgation of Rules of 1996 i. e. before January 25, 1997 shall be governed by the Rules of 1975 and the orders issued thereunder. Rules of 1996 shall not be made applicable to such cases. As all the Government servants in the instant writ petitions had died before January 25, 1997 the respondents are directed to decide their cases afresh in view of Rules of 1975 within a period of 45 days from the date of receipt of this order. (ii) Rules 5 and 10 (3) and (6) of the Rules of 1996 are adjudged valid. But the State Government or authority concerned is expected to take immediate decision on the applications. Time limit of 45 days from the date of receipt of the application may be fixed so as to avoid the allegation of proceeding at a pace unduly slow like a snail walk. If application is received after prescribed period of 45 days and reasonable explanation is afforded for such delay then the Government authority concerned should take recourse to the provisions of Section 5 of the Limitation Act in condoning the delay. " Feeling aggrieved by the judgment, the Board of Revenue for Rajasthan, Ajmer and another have preferred the above appeal. WRIT APPEAL NO. 681/2000 Writ Appeal No. 681/2000 was filed against the order passed in Writ Petition No. 2020/98. The respondent filed the above writ petition to declare the provisions of Rule 5 to the extent of excluding a dependant whose mother/father, brother and sister (being spouse, son or daughter of deceased employee) is in service as illegal and arbitrary and unconstitutional and consequently the same may be struck down. A further prayer has been made to declare Rule 10 (6) as illegal and arbitrary as the same defeats the very object and reason giving rise to promulgation of rules providing compassionate appointment. Petitioner/respondent's father died on 7. 10. 1995 while working on the post of U. D. C. in the C. I. D. (C. B.) which is a department in the Police organisation. The family consisted of wife of the deceased and three sons. The mother of the respondent Smt. Rajkumari is a Teacher Gr. III in the Education Department of the Government of Rajasthan. The respondent after the death of his father submitted an application for appointment on compassionate grounds on the post commensurating his qualification. The application was also signed by the mother of the respondent seeking appointment for her son. The application was forwarded by the Superintendent of Police-I, Crime Branch, Jaipur to the Deputy Inspector General of Police, Police Head quarter, Jaipur for appropriate action. The application was rejected and a communication to this effect was sent to the respondent. The respondent sent a notice for demand of justice on 11. 8. 97. Thereafter he submitted the writ petition which was partly allowed by the learned Single Judge. A reply to the writ petition was submitted by the appellants that the mother of the writ petitioner is already in the employment of the State Government and since the mother of the writ petitioner is competent to maintain the family of the deceased Government servant, therefore, there is no necessity to give employment to another person in the same family. Since the Rules of 1975 have been repealed the case of the petitioner shall be considered only in accordance with the Rules of 1996 because cause of action of appointment arises only from the date of consideration of the application at the Government level. The learned Judge upheld the validity of Rule 5 of the Rules but however issued the directions as extracted above in paragraph supra. Feeling aggrieved the State of Rajasthan preferred the above appeal. Writ APPEAL NO. 682/2000 Writ Appeal No. 682/2000 was filed against the order passed in S. B. Civil Writ Petition No. 6/98 which was also disposed of by the learned Single Judge alongwith other writ petitions. The respondent Manoj Singh Chauhan was the son of one Rajpal Singh who was holding the post of Inspector of Police but expired on 2. 11. 1996. The elder brother of the respondent has been working as Agriculture Supervisor in Agriculture Department of the State of Rajasthan. The respondent's mother submitted an application to the Director General cum Inspector General of Police on 26. 11. 96 that her son be given appointment on the post of Sub Inspector of Police or equivalent post under the provisions of Rajasthan Recruitment of Dependents of Government Servant (Dying While in Service) Rules, 1975. A reply was filed by the appellants that the respondent was not entitled for employment being overage under the provisions of the Rules (25 years of age on 15. 6. 1972 ). It is also submitted that the respondent does not fulfil the conditions for appointment on the post of Sub Inspector of Police as is evident from the fact that under Rule 11 of the Rajasthan Police Subordinate Service Rules, 1989 a candidate for direct recruitment to the service must not have attained the age of 23 years for the post of Sub Inspector and 21 years for the post of Constable. Rule 11 of the Rules is reproduced as under:- "11. Age.- A candidate for direct recruitment to the services must have attained- (a) for the post of Sub-Inspector/platoon Commander, the age of 20 years and must not have attained the age of 23 years, on 1st January next following the last date fixed for receipt of application. (b) For the post of Constables, the age of 18 years and must not have attained the age of 21 years on 1st day of January next following the last date fixed for receipt of applications. However the upper age limit for Constable (Driver) shall be 24 years: Provided that : (1) the upper age-limit shall be relaxed upto 5 years in case of the candidates belonging to the SC/st, and Women, and 3 years in case of the candidates belonging to State Government employees and the dependents of the deceased Police Officers/officials killed in the discharge of their duties. (2) The upper age limit mentioned above shall be 40 years in the case of Ex-Service Personnel and the Reservists, namely the service personnel who are transferred to the Reserve. (3) However the upper age limit mentioned above may be relaxed by three years in exceptional cases by appointing authority, after previous approval of Government. (4) That the released Emergency Commissioned Officers and Short Service Commissioned Officers after release from the army, shall be deemed to be within the age-limit, when they appear before the commission, had they been eligible as such at the time of their joining the commission in the Army. " It is the case of the appellant that on the date of the application the respondent had attained the age of more than 24 years and hence in terms of Rule 11 of the Rules he was over age since he had crossed the upper age limit prescribed under the Rules. As such the application of the respondent was rejected by the appellants vide order dated 20. 12. 97 under Rule 5 of the Rules of 1996. The respondent preferred the writ petition which was partly allowed, against which the present appeal has been filed by the State. Writ APPEAL NO. 782/2000
(3.) WRIT Appeal No. 782/2000 has been filed against the order passed in S. B. Civil WRIT Petition No. 5800/98 which was also partly allowed by the learned Single Judge. In this case it is alleged that the father of the respondent died on 11. 10. 1996 while working on the post of Teacher, Government Secondary School, Khawa which is an establishment/institution of the Education Department of the Government of Rajasthan. The family of the deceased government servant consisted of his wife, one married son, two unmarried sons and one daughter (unmarried ). According to the respondent his qualification is Secondary School Examination from Board of Secondary Education in 1996-97. The mother of the respondent submitted an application on 16. 8. 1997 in the office of the appellant No. 2 with a request to consider the application for employment to her son being the dependent of the deceased Government servant. The application was not in prescribed from as such the respondent was asked to submit the same in the prescribed form under the Rules of 1996. After examining the application the same was rejected and a communication dated 3. 1. 98 (Anx. 5) mentioning therein that the application has been submitted after the expiry of 45 days of the death of the deceased government servant which the limitation prescribed under sub-rule (3) of Rule 10 of the Rules of 1996. The respondent thereafter submitted various applications seeking employment but the same were rejected under the provisions of the Rules. Thereafter the respondent filed the writ petition which was allowed by the learned Single Judge alongwith other writ petitions. Being aggrieved, the present special appeal has been filed. Heard Shri R. N Mathur, Additional Advocate General, Mr. Mohd. Rafiq, Additional Advocate General and Shri M. R. Naredi, Advocate for the appellants in the above cases and Shri Ajay Rastogi for the respective respondents in the appeals. Before we proceed to deal with the arguments advanced by the respective parties, it is useful to reproduce some paragraph of the judgment of the learned Single Judge. The learned Judge has tested the validity of Rules 5 and 10 of the Rules of 1996. After referring to the arguments advanced the learned Judge in paragraphs 19 and 20 of his judgment has observed as follows: "19. I do not find merit in the submission. One of the persons shown in Rule 2 (c) who were wholly dependant on the deceased at the time of his/her death is eligible for the compassionate appointment provided that none of the dependants is already employed on regular basis in State or Central Service, Board, Organisation, Corporation owned and controlled by the Central/state, at the time of the death of the deceased. But this condition shall not apply where the widow of the deceased seeks employment for herself. On account of the death of a person whole family suffers but widow of the deceased suffers the most. Therefore the framers of the Rules of 1996 added proviso to Rule 5 to give benefit of compassionate appointment to the widow. Looking to the pious duty of the earning members towards the family of the deceased, the framers imposed a condition that the dependant of the deceased shall not be entitled to employment if any other dependant of the deceased is already in employment. To my mind this condition is rightly imposed. It is the duty of the earning member of the family of the deceased to look after the family at the time of financial crisis but if on account of selfishness or some other reason, earning member ignores the other surviving members of the family of the deceased the State government is not duty bound to create the mode of recruitment for the other dependant. And what is the guarantee that after seeking compassionate appointment such a dependant shall remain with other members of the family and shall not become selfish? Under these circumstances provisions contained in Rule 5 of the Rules of 1996 cannot be said to be arbitrary as there are enough safeguards to take care the welfare of the family of deceased Government servant. 20. I also do not see any unconstitutionality in Rule 10 (3) and (6) of the Rules of 1996. Prescribing the period of limitation is necessary in view of the fact that the object of granting compassionate appointment is to relieve the family of the deceased of the financial destitution and to help it in getting over the emergency. But at the same time the Government or authority concerned is expected to take immediate decision on the applications. Time limit of 45 days, from the date of receipt of the application may be fixed so as to avoid the allegation of proceeding at a pace unduly slow like a snail walk. If application is received after prescribed period of 45 days and reasonable explanation is offered for such delay than the Government or authority concerned should take recourse to the provisions of section 5 of the Limitation Act in condoning the delay. " ;