Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)
Prodip Kumar Das vs The State Of West Bengal & Ors on 18 March, 2019
Author: Amrita Sinha
Bench: Amrita Sinha
1
18.03.2019
Ct. No. 24
Item No.27
pk.
WP No. 2393 (W) of 2019
Prodip Kumar Das
-vs-
The State of West Bengal & Ors.
Mr. Achyut Basu,
Mr. Arijit Majumdar,
Ms. Sonam Basu,
Ms. Punam Basu for the petitioner
Mr. Joyotosh Majumder, Ld. Govt. Pleader,
Mr. Sougata Mitra,
Mr. Tamal Taru Panda for the State
None appears on behalf of the Gayeshpur Municipality in spite of repeated
service.
The case of the petitioner is that he made an application for being
appointed on compassionate ground. The Chairman of the Municipality vide the
Memo No. GM/GL/118/2013 dated 9th April 2013 forwarded the documents of
the petitioner to the Director of Local Bodies, West Bengal in response to a Memo
No. 224/DLB/Comp/P-408/15-96 dated 2nd February 2011 whereby and
whereunder the Municipality was requested to forward the documents for the
appointment of eight numbers of died-in-harness cases on compassionate
ground.
A reminder for approval of appointment on compassionate ground was also
issued by the Chairman of the Municipality to the Director of Local Bodies vide
Reference No. GM/GL/371/2014 dated 23rd June 2014.
2
As there was no response from the office of the Director of Local Bodies, the
petitioner made a further representation before the Chairman of the Municipality
on 16th of July 2018 praying for giving appointment on compassionate ground.
The Learned Government Pleader appearing for the State respondents
submits that the scheme for giving appointment on compassionate ground has been abandoned on and from 2007 and at present there is no scheme pursuant to which compassionate appointment can be given to employees of the Municipality. He relies upon an unreported judgement dated 26th June 2018 passed in W.P. no. 13147(W) of 2017 (Gobinda Hazra vs. State of West Bengal & Ors.) whereby a bunch of writ petitions were taken up for consideration by the Hon'ble Single Judge and the prayer for granting compassionate appointment was dismissed by the Hon'ble Court. He further submits that there is no scope for considering the prayer of the petitioner for granting compassionate appointment in the absence of any such scheme.
The learned advocate appearing on behalf of the petitioner relies upon an unreported judgement delivered by Hon'ble Single Judge of this court on 30th January 2018 in W.P. No. 17824 (W) of 2015 whereby this Hon'ble Court directed the authorities to consider the case of the petitioner in accordance with law. Be that as it may, since the documents of the petitioner were forwarded by the Chairman of the Municipality to the Director of the Local Bodies pursuant to the request made by the Director of Local Bodies for transmission of the documents relating to appointment of died-in-harness case on compassionate 3 ground, the petitioner is entitled to know the fate of his application made before the concerned authority.
In view of the above, the instant writ petition is disposed of by directing the respondent no. 2 being the Director of Local Bodies to consider the prayer of the petitioner for appointment on compassionate ground in accordance with law within a period of eight weeks from the date of communication of a copy of this order and to pass a reasoned order to be communicated to the petitioner within a fortnight thereafter.
It is made clear that this court has not gone into the merits of the case and all points are kept open for the respondents to decide the case of the petitioner in accordance with law.
W.P. No. 2393 (W) of 2019 is disposed of accordingly.
Urgent photostat certified copy of this order be supplied to the parties, if applied for, as early as possible.
(Amrita Sinha, J.)