The Senior Scientist And Head vs Smt. K. Bhagyalaxmi
2025 Latest Caselaw 6651 Tel

Telangana High Court

The Senior Scientist And Head vs Smt. K. Bhagyalaxmi on 21 November, 2025

     THE HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE SRI APARESH KUMAR SINGH
                                AND
           THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE G.M. MOHIUDDIN

                  WRIT APPEAL No.814 of 2025

JUDGMENT:

This Writ Appeal assails the Order, dated 10.04.2025

passed by the learned Single Judge in W.P.No.19214 of 2014,

whereby the Writ Petition filed by respondent No.1 herein was

allowed, directing the appellants herein to provide employment

to the petitioner on compassionate grounds.

2. Heard Sri G.Vidya Sagar, learned Senior Counsel

appearing on behalf of Smt. K.Udaya Sri, learned counsel for the

appellants; Sri Srinivas Emani, learned counsel for respondent

No.1 and perused the record.

Factual Matrix (in brief)

3. The factual background, necessary for adjudication of this

appeal, is as follows:

i) Respondent No.1 herein/writ petitioner (hereafter "the

petitioner") claims to have applied for compassionate

employment within one year of her husband's death on

02.04.2011, as required by the governing scheme under

G.O.Ms.No.687.

ii) It is the case of the appellant-University that the

petitioner's first valid application was received on 20.03.2013,

beyond the one-year limit, which was duly rejected by a

speaking order dated 31.05.2014. The petitioner's subsequent

claims of having applied earlier on 15.08.2011 and 20.09.2011

is an afterthought. Further, the forensic examination of the

dispatch register reveals that the said entries were subsequently

interpolated, thereby demonstrating that the petitioner's claim

is a fabricated attempt to create a false factual foundation.

iii) It is the case of the petitioner that she submitted her

application through the proper channel i.e., the Senior Scientist

& Head, JVRHRS, Malyala on 20.09.2011, within six months of

her husband's death. The delay of over three years in

forwarding this application to the Head Office was the fault of

the authorities, for which she should not be penalized. The

petitioner claims that her stand is supported by a subsequent

letter from the University dated 05.12.2020, which corroborates

her claim.

iv) The learned Single Judge while allowing the Writ

Petition held that the delay of more than three years in

forwarding the petitioner's application was entirely attributable

to the respondents and could not be a ground to deny her claim;

that the petitioner could not be penalized for the administrative

lapse committed by the authorities in processing her

application; that the University's subsequent communication

dated 05.12.2020 corroborated the petitioner's assertion

regarding timely submission of her application; that the

petitioner had indeed submitted her application within the

prescribed period.

4. The learned counsel for the appellants raised the following

contentions:

4.1 That the very object of the scheme of compassionate

appointment is to provide immediate relief for a family in

sudden crisis. An application made two years after the

death of the employee on 20.03.2013, completely defeats

this object and is time-barred as per the explicit one-year

limit under the G.O.Ms.No.687, which governs the

scheme.

4.2 That the alleged application dated 20.09.2011 was

set up for the first time in the reply affidavit and finds no

mention in the original Writ Petition. It is asserted that

the said document is fabricated, as the dispatch register

contains an interpolated entry at S.No.100-A and the

endorsement on the alleged application bears a date of

20.09.2014, not 2011, indicating it was created later.

4.3 That both the Writ Petition and the petitioner's first

affidavit refer only to the representations dated

15.08.2011 and in the year 2012, and there is no mention

whatsoever of any application dated 20.09.2011, and

failure to mention the crucial 20.09.2011 application

initially is fatal to her case.

4.4 That the Hon'ble Supreme Court in State of West

Bengal v. Debabrata Tiwari 1, has held that directing

compassionate appointment after the lapse of a long

period defeats the very object of the scheme. In the

present matter, nearly fourteen years have passed since

the employee's death in 2011, and even on the petitioner's

own showing, more than eleven years have elapsed since

the purported application in 2013. Thus, any financial

crisis the family may have faced has long since dissipated,

and therefore no claim for compassionate appointment

can survive.

4.5 That the petitioner did not challenge the rejection

order dated 31.05.2014 until by a belated amendment in

2023. This demonstrates acquiescence and a lack of a

timely, valid cause of action.

5. Per contra, the learned counsel for the respondents

defended the impugned order of the learned Single Judge,

contending that it does not suffer from any infirmity either in

2023 SCC OnLine SC 219

law or on facts. It is submitted that the learned Single Judge

has rightly appreciated the material on record and applied the

settled legal principles, and therefore, the order of learned

Single Judge warrants no interference in this appeal.

6. We have taken note of the respective contentions urged.

Analysis and Reasons:

7. After a thorough consideration of the pleadings, the

impugned order of the learned Single Judge and the

submissions advanced, we find substantial force in the

contentions raised by the appellants.

8. In the present case, the employee died on 02.04.2011

and, even assuming the respondent's version to be correct, the

purported application is said to have been made on 20.09.2011.

The impugned direction for compassionate appointment,

however, has been issued only on 10.04.2025. A direction for

appointment nearly fourteen years after the death of the

employee, and more than a decade after the initiation of

proceedings, defeats the very object and rationale of the

compassionate appointment scheme. The 'sudden crisis' that

informs the very basis of the scheme is inherently temporary

and cannot be stretched into a continuing claim. As held in

Debabrata Tiwari's case (supra 1), granting compassionate

appointment after such an inordinate delay treats it as a matter

of inheritance, which it is never intended to be, as the sense of

immediate relief stands irretrievably lost.

9. The Apex Court in Debabrata Tiwari's case (supra 1), while

reiterating the view expressed in Malaya Nanda Shetty v.

State of Orissa 2 has observed, as to in which manner the

authorities must consider and decide applications for

appointment on compassionate grounds, as under:

14. Before parting with the present order, we are constrained to observe that considering the object and purpose of appointment on compassionate grounds i.e. a family of a deceased employee may be placed in a position of financial hardship upon the untimely death of the employee while in service and the basis or policy is immediacy in rendering of financial assistance to the family of the deceased consequent upon his untimely death, the authorities must consider and decide such applications for appointment on compassionate grounds as per the policy prevalent, at the earliest, but not beyond a period of six months from the date of submission of such completed applications.

16. If the object and purpose of appointment on compassionate grounds as envisaged under the relevant policies or the rules have to be achieved then it is just and necessary that such applications are considered well in time and not in a tardy way. We have come across cases where for nearly two decades the controversy regarding the application made for compassionate appointment is not resolved.

This consequently leads to the frustration of the very policy of granting compassionate appointment on the death of the employee while in service. We have, therefore, directed that such applications must be considered at an earliest point of time. The consideration must be fair, reasonable and based on relevant consideration. The application cannot be rejected on the basis of frivolous and for reasons extraneous to the facts of the case. Then and then only the object and purpose of appointment on compassionate grounds can be achieved.

(Emphasis supplied)

AIR 2022 SC 2836

10. It is settled law that compassionate appointment is

neither a vested right nor an alternative mode of public

employment; it constitutes a narrowly carved exception to the

constitutional guarantees of equality enshrined in Articles 14

and 16 of the Constitution, justified only by the sudden

financial distress befalling a family upon the demise of its sole

breadwinner. Its limited object is to provide immediate relief to

enable the family to overcome the abrupt financial crisis. The

operative requirement of the scheme is, therefore, one of

immediacy.

11. It is pertinent to note that the learned Single Judge's

reliance on the purported application dated 20.09.2011 is a

grave error, for the following reasons:

i. Firstly, the original Writ Petition and the accompanying affidavit filed in 2014 did not make any reference whatsoever to such an application; it is introduced for the first time only in a reply affidavit filed much later, clearly suggesting an afterthought devised to cure a fatal lacuna in the respondent's case.

ii. Secondly, the appellants have produced the relevant pages of the Dispatch Register of JVRHRS, Malyal, which reveal an interpolation between Serial Nos. 100 and 101, through the insertion of 'S.No.100-A' purportedly pertaining to the respondent-petitioner's application. The contemporaneous entries do not contain any such dispatch, thereby indicating an attempt to create a false trail of official movement.

iii. Thirdly, the endorsement on the bottom of the alleged application, though dated 20.09.2011, bears the signature dated 20.09.2014, which clearly demonstrates that the document, in its present form, was either created or altered in 2014 and not on the date it purports to bear.

These discrepancies, when viewed collectively, undermine the

very foundation of the respondent-writ petitioner's claim and

disclose a deliberate attempt to mislead the Court.

12. It is to be noted that in the light of the overwhelming

indicators of fabrication, the learned Single Judge was not

justified in placing reliance on the impugned document. The

communication dated 05.12.2020, being an internal

correspondence unsupported by any contemporaneous file or

underlying material, cannot revive a claim that rests upon a

document whose authenticity remains questionable. The

contemporaneous entries in the Dispatch Register, which form

part of the official record, must necessarily prevail over a self-

serving letter issued nearly a decade thereafter.

13. It is also to be noted that the only application that finds

legitimate and consistent reflection in the records of the

University is the one received on 20.03.2013. This application

was ex facie beyond the one-year period prescribed under the

scheme, and the appellant-University rightly rejected it by a

reasoned order dated 31.05.2014. Significantly, the petitioner

did not assail this rejection order in the original Writ Petition,

which is a material omission. The belated attempt to amend the

prayer in 2023 cannot cure the foundational defect of the claim

being time-barred.

14. Further, this Court is of the considered opinion that the

learned Single Judge did not correctly apply the principles laid

down in Debabrata Tiwari's case (supra 1). The learned Single

Judge's observation that the authorities ought to have examined

the retired official who signed the 2020 communication is

misconceived, as the burden of proof rested upon the petitioner

to establish the foundational fact that she had submitted her

application within the prescribed time, which was never

discharged. On the contrary, the very document relied upon by

her stands tainted with serious doubt. In such circumstances,

no adverse inference could have been drawn against the

authorities for not examining the retired official.

Conclusion:

15. For the foregoing reasons and in the light of the aforesaid

discussion, we are of the considered opinion that:

i. The respondent-writ petitioner has failed to establish that

she submitted any application for compassionate

appointment within one year of her husband's death in

2011.

ii. The document purportedly bearing the date 20.09.2011 is

unreliable and exhibits clear indications of fabrication.

iii. The only authenticated application is the one received by

the University on 20.03.2013, which was indisputably

beyond the prescribed period and was, therefore, rightly

rejected.

iv. A direction to grant compassionate appointment in 2025,

in respect of a death that occurred in 2011, runs contrary

to the very object of the scheme and to the law enunciated

by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Debabrata Tiwari's

case (supra 1).

16. Accordingly, the Writ Appeal is allowed and the impugned

order dated 10.04.2025 passed by the learned Single Judge in

W.P.No.19214 of 2014 is set aside. There shall be no order as

to costs.

As a sequel, the miscellaneous petitions, if any, shall

stand closed.

______________________________________ APARESH KUMAR SINGH, CJ

______________________________________ G.M. MOHIUDDIN, J

Date: 21.11.2025 ssp