Recruitment Rules Should Not be used to deny Compassionate Appointment, Says Allahabad High Court

In a significant judgment, the Allahabad High Court has made it clear that recruitment rules should not be used to block the real purpose of compassionate appointment. The Court said compassionate appointment is a special exception to normal recruitment and is meant to help families facing sudden financial hardship after the death of an employee.

The decision was given by a bench of Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh and Justice Indrajeet Shukla. The Court explained that recruitment rules are framed to ensure equal opportunity under Article 16 of the Constitution, while compassionate appointment rules exist for a different reason. They are designed to provide immediate support to families who lose their sole earning member. Because of this special purpose, compassionate rules must be given priority where there is a conflict.

The case arose after a woman’s sister died while working at Banaras Hindu University. The woman applied for compassionate appointment, but her request was rejected by the University on the ground that she was over the maximum age limit prescribed in the recruitment rules. The University argued that age relaxation was allowed only for widows or divorcees and not for sisters of deceased employees.

The writ court earlier allowed her plea and directed the University to reconsider her application without treating it as time-barred and without strictly applying recruitment rules. Challenging this, the University filed an appeal, claiming that recruitment rules applied to compassionate appointments and that the applicant was overage at the time of her sister’s death.

The High Court carefully examined the compassionate appointment rules and noted that they clearly included the sister of an unmarried employee as an eligible dependent. It also observed that these rules allowed age relaxation wherever necessary, while recruitment rules fixed rigid age limits. In such a situation, the Court held that the rule which best serves the purpose of compassionate appointment must prevail.

The Court strongly rejected the idea that only widows or divorcees could face financial hardship. It said it was illogical to assume that other dependents, simply because they are older, would not suffer after the sudden death of a family member. Such an assumption, the Court said, goes against common sense and defeats the very purpose of compassionate appointment.

The High Court also ruled that a resolution passed by the University’s Executive Council could not override statutory compassionate appointment rules unless those rules were formally amended. Since this was not done, the resolution had no legal force.

While the Court agreed that recruitment rules cannot be ignored entirely when deciding eligibility, it made it clear that age limits under those rules should not defeat compassionate claims. Finally, the Court directed the University to reconsider the petitioner’s application by using the discretion provided under the compassionate appointment rules, without strictly applying the age limit set under recruitment rules.

This ruling reinforces the idea that compassionate appointment is about relief, not rigid rule-following, and that humanity must guide decisions in such cases.

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