Orissa High Court
Sadyasmita Mohapatra vs State Of Odisha And on 4 February, 2025
Author: Biraja Prasanna Satapathy
Bench: Biraja Prasanna Satapathy
IN THE HIGH COURT OF ORISSA AT CUTTACK
W.P.(C) No.191 of 2025
Sadyasmita Mohapatra .... Petitioner
Mr. D.K. Mohanty, Adv.
-versus-
State of Odisha and
Others .... Opp. Parties
Mr. P.K. Panda, ASC
CORAM:
JUSTICE BIRAJA PRASANNA SATAPATHY
ORDER
Order 04.02.2025
No
2. 1. This matter is taken up through Hybrid
Arrangement (Virtual/Physical) Mode.
2. Heard learned counsel for the parties.
3. The Petitioner has filed the present Writ Petition
inter alia challenging order dated 02.11.2022 so passed by
O.P. No.3 under Annexure-8. Vide the said order, claim of
the petitioner to get the benefit of Rehabilitation
Appointment has been rejected on the ground that
petitioner is the married daughter of the deceased
employee.
4. Learned counsel for the petitioner contended that
entitlement of married daughter to get the benefit of
// 2 //
Rehabilitation Appointment is no more res-integra and
this Court in series of cases has already held that married
daughters are also eligible to get the benefit. In support of
his submission, learned counsel for the petitioner relied
on the following decisions of this Court in the case of
Mamita Parida Vrs. State of Odisha and Others &
Smt. Gayatri Naik Vrs. State of Odisha and Others.
This Court in the case of Mamita Parida in Para-4.3 has
held as follows:-
"4.3. It is however contended that even though Petitioner
in the meantime has got married, but since by the time
Petitioner made her application, she was unmarried, she
is eligible and entitled to get the benefit of appointment. It
is also contended that this Court in the case of
Kshirabadhi Bala Behera Vs. Odisha Administrative
Tribunal represented through its Registrar, Cuttack &
Ors. (2023 (Supp. I) OLR - 620 has also held that a
married daughter will be entitled to get the benefit of
appointment under the provisions of Rehabilitation
Assistance Scheme. This Court in Para 46 & 47 of
Judgment in Kshirabadhi Bala Behera has held as
follows:-
"46. From the factual and legal analysis, as
made above, it emanates that institution of
marriage is an important and basic civil right of
man and woman and marriage by itself is not a
disqualification and impugned policy of the State
Government barring and prohibiting the
consideration of the „married‟ daughter from
seeking compassionate appointment merely on
the ground of marriage is plainly arbitrary and
violative of constitutional guarantees, as
envisaged in Articles 14, 15, and 16(2) of the
Constitution of India. Accordingly, the word
„unmarried‟, as prescribed in Rules, 1990 and
Rules, 2020 is hereby struck down being
unconstitutional and ultra vires being
// 4 // violative of Articles 14, 15 and 16 of the
Constitution of India.
47. As a fallout and consequence of aforesaid
discussions, the orders dated 06.05.2015 and
29.06.2015 passed by the Tribunal in O.A.
// 3 //
No.1063 (C) of 2015 and M.P. No.637(C) of 2015
respectively cannot be sustained in the eye of
law and accordingly the same are liable to
quashed and are hereby quashed. As a
consequence thereof, refusal to grant benefit to
the „married‟ daughter for consideration of
compassionate appointment is hereby declared
void and inoperative. Hence, the order impugned
passed by the authority in rejecting the
petitioner‟s case for compassionate appointment
is hereby quashed. Accordingly, the opposite
parties are directed to reconsider the claim of the
petitioner for being appointed on compassionate
ground afresh in accordance with law keeping in
mind the fact that her father was died on
12.12.2010 and her application was rejected on
17.11.2014 after four years.""
This Court in the case of Smt. Gayatri Naik in
Para-4.4 has held as follows:-
"4.4. In support of the aforesaid submission, Mr. Rath,
learned counsel for the Petitioner relied on the decision of
this Court passed in the case of Basanti Nayak vs. State of
Orissa and Others decided on 27.10.2022. This Court in
Paragraphs-10, 11 and 12 of the said judgment has held
as follows:-
"10. In Umesh Kumar Nagpal v. State of Haryana,1 the
Supreme Court held that the object of compassionate
appointment is to help the family tied over the crisis that
befalls them on the circumstance, so that the family will
not be put to jeopardy by being driven to impecuniosities
and condemned by penury. It is for this reason the
emphasis on appointment on compassionate grounds is
immediacy of appointment. This principle has been laid
down in various judgments of the apex Court and, as such,
the compassionate appointment is by now too well settled
that it is not a matter of right and not an alternate source
of recruitment.
11. In the case of C.B. Muthamma v. Union of India2, the
Supreme Court in the context of Indian Foreign Service
(Conduct and Discipline), Rules, 1961, which prohibits
appointment of married woman to such service, held in
paragraphs-6 and 7 as follows: "At the first blush this
rule is in defiance of Article 16. If a married man has a
right, a married woman, other things being equal, stands
on no worse footing. This misogynous posture is a
hangover of the masculine culture of manacling the weaker
sex forgetting how our struggle for national freedom was
// 4 //
also a battle against woman‟s thralldom. Freedom is
indivisible, so is justice. That our founding faith
enshrined in Articles 14 and 16 should have been
tragically ignored vis-à-vis. half of India‟s humanity viz.
our women, is a sad reflection on the distance between
Constitution in the book and law in action. And if the
executive as the surrogate of Parliament, makes rules in
the teeth of Part III especially when high political office,
even diplomatic assignment has been filled by women, the
inference of diehard allergy to gender parity is inevitable.
We do not mean to universalize or dogmatise that men and
women are equal in all occupations and all situations and
do not exclude the need to pragmatise where the
requirements of particular employment, the sensitivities of
sex or the peculiarities of societal sectors or the handicaps
// 4 // of either sex may compel selectivity. But save
where the differentiation is demonstrable, the rule of
equality must govern."
Similar view has also been taken by the Bombay High
Court in Ranjana Murlidhar Anerao v.State of
Maharashtra3.
12. In the case of Kshirabadi Bala Behera v. Orissa
Administrative Tribunal4, this Court observed that:
"The Apex Court in number of cases repeatedly
emphasized the need of compassionate appointment to the
dependent of the deceased Government servant without
any loss of time. The whole object of granting
compassionate appointment to enable the dependent(s) of
deceased's family to earn bread and butter for the
family and to come out from financial crisis, who suffers on
account of unexpected and untimely death of
deceased/Government servant therefore, the criteria to
grant compassionate appointment should be „dependency‟
rather than „marriage‟. In a given case, a „married‟
daughter might be deserted wife, might have been
abandoned wife, fully dependent upon her father, she
might have been married to an indigent husband so that
both the married daughter and son-in-law could have been
dependent of the bread winner whose death left them to
extreme financial hardship. There might be many other
probabilities in which married daughter might be fully
dependent upon the income of her father so that the death
of the father to leave her and rest of the family members in
extreme financial hardship. Therefore, the yardstick for
extending the benefit of compassionate appointment
should be dependency of the dependents on the deceased
Government Servant and their marital status of dependent
should not be impediment for his/her consideration on
compassionate ground to wipeout leaves from the eyes of
the suffering family on account of loss of earning member
// 5 //
in the family. A daughter after her marriage doesn't cease
to be daughter of the father or mother and obliged to
maintain their parents and daughter cannot be allowed to
escape its responsibility on the ground that she is now
married, therefore, such a policy of the State Government
disqualifying, a „married‟ daughter and excluding her from
consideration apart from being arbitrary and
discriminating is retrograde step of State Government as
welfare State, on which stamp of approval cannot be
made by this Court."
4.1. It is contended that since in similar issue this Court
has held that married daughters are also eligible to get the
benefit of compassionate appointment, ground on which
claim of the petitioner has been rejected vide the
impugned order is not sustainable in the eye of law.
5. Mr. P.K. Panda, learned Addl. Standing Counsel
though on the other hand supported the impugned order
but on being confronted with the order passed by this
Court in a number of Writ Petitions, contended that the
matter be remitted to O.P. No.3 to take a fresh decision on
the claim of the petitioner.
6. Having heard learned counsel for the parties,
considering the submissions made and placing reliance on
the decisions in the case of Mamita Parida & Smt.
Gayatri Naik as cited (supra), this Court is inclined to
quash order dated 02.11.2022 under Annexure-8. While
quashing the same, this Court remits the matter to O.P.
No.3 to take a fresh decision on the claim of the petitioner
in the light of the orders passed in the case of Mamita
Parida & Smt. Gayatri Naik. Such a fresh decision be
taken within a period of 2 (two) months from the date of
// 6 //
receipt of this order with due communication to the
petitioner.
7. The Writ Petition stands disposed of.
(Biraja Prasanna Satapathy)
Judge
Basudev
Location: High Court of Orissa, Cuttack
