Delhi High Court
Shri Het Ram And Others vs Union Of India And Others on 16 August, 2001
Equivalent citations: 2002(61)DRJ754
Author: Sharda Aggarwal
Bench: Sharda Aggarwal
ORDER
Khan, (J)
1. Petitioner no.2 is the father of petitioner no.1. He lost his leg while in service and subsequently retired on 31.3.1995. Petitioner no.1 (son) applied for compassionate appointment on 31.3.1995 itself. He case was not allegedly considered by respondents and he filed O.A. 1261/1995 for this which was rejected by impugned order dated 29.6.1998 on the ground that his father had retired on superannuation and not medical incapacitation as contemplated by Railways Master Circular dated 12.12.1990. Hence this petition.
2. Petitioner's short case is that the aforesaid circular did not provide for compassionate appointment on Railway servant retiring on medical incapacitation. L/C for petitioner, Ms. Ramakrishnan has taken us through various provisions of this Circular to show that the retirement of medical incapacitation was not there.
3. Mr. Krishna representing respondents on the other hand took pains to bring out the real intent of the Circular to show that no compassion could be said to be involved where a Railway servant retired from service on superannuation and was drawing all retiral benefits. He stressed that rationale behind a compassionate appointment was to provide succour to dependants of a servant in distress and not to pave way for their back door entry.
4. Some of the relevant provisions of Master Circular require to be extracted and referred to for proper appreciation of controversy whether these postulated retirement of a Railway servant on incapacitation:-
"I. CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH COMPASSIONATE APPOINTMENT MAY BE MADE.
Appointments on compassionate grounds, relate to the appointments made of dependents of railway servants who lose their lives in the course of duty or die in harness otherwise while in service or are medically incapacitated/decategorised. The circumstances in which appointments on compassionate grounds may be made are as below:-
(i) When Railway servants lose their lives in the course of duty or get so crippled that they cannot do any work (this also in the course of duty - for example, Loco and traffic running staff in charge of trains involved in accidents).
IV. When Railway employees become crippled while in service or develops ailments like heart disease, cancer, etc. or otherwise medically decategorised for the job they are holding and no alternative job of the same employments can be offered to them."
5. A perusal of these Circular provisions does not specifically stipulate that benefit of compassionate appointment would be available to wards/dependants of those servants only who would retire from service due to physical incapacity incurred by them during such service. The spirit and sense behind these could as well be that as urged by Mr. Krishna, but is was not for us to fill up the gaps and read something in these provisions which was not contained therein. Doing that would tantamount to rewriting the relevant provisions and to provide for the omission which does not fall within our domain. It was for the respondents to do so, more so when grey area in these were resorted to for seeking compassionate employment. Be that as it may, we find ti innocuous to dispose of this petition by the following order:-
"Impugned Tribunal order is set aside and respondent s are directed to reconsider petitioners case for compassionate appointment subject to his eligibility/ suitability and pass appropriate orders within four months from receipt of this order."