Bengaluru: Karnataka high court has observed that compassionate appointment is a concession born of necessity, not a right born of relationship.Its purpose is to rescue a dependent family from sudden destitution, not to perpetuate employment within a family by succession, a division bench of Justices M Nagaprasanna and Hema Kulkarni noted in its order passed on Oct 28 while allowing an appeal filed by state-owned Kalyana Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (KKRTC).Veeresh Mantappa Lolasar, a KKRTC driver, died in harness on Sept 21, 2023. Veeresh’s wife had predeceased him and the couple had no children. His mother, Mantavva, 65, requested KKRTC to provide compassionate appointment to Veeresh’s brother Sanganna.However, her request was turned down on the ground that the applicant was already married and, as per the circular of the corporation, a brother does not fall within the definition of a dependent.Thereafter, the family approached the high court and the single bench ruled in the family’s favour and issued a direction to KKRTC to provide a suitable post to Sanganna, based on his educational qualification.In their appeal against the single bench’s order, KKRTC argued that the married brother of the deceased employee does not answer the description of a dependent under the circular. Compassionate appointment, being an exception to the constitutional mandate of equality in public employment, cannot be converted into an avenue of employment, the corporation contended.On the other hand, the applicants submitted that the very soul of compassionate appointment lies in rescuing a family from the sudden financial catastrophe that follows the death of its breadwinner. The deceased employee having lost his wife during his lifetime and having left behind neither wife nor children, the mother and the brother were the surviving relations who looked to him for support. The brother of the deceased also placed an affidavit undertaking to maintain and take care of the aged mother, the court was told.After perusing the materials on record, the division bench was of the view that compassionate appointment cannot become compassionate recruitment. Nor can a court, moved by the hardship of an individual, create a new class of beneficiaries under the guise of interpreting an existing one, the bench pointed out.It added that the brother of the deceased employee, who is married, resides distantly and is not a dependent within the meaning of the circular, cannot claim appointment on compassionate grounds merely on the strength of an undertaking to maintain his mother. A moral obligation cannot, by the mere filing of an affidavit, metamorphose into a statutory or policy-based entitlement. Compassion must remain the soul of the scheme, but the law must remain its sentinel, the division bench added, setting aside the order passed by the single bench.
