Compassionate appointment is not a vested right: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court ruled that compassionate appointment is not a vested right which can be granted without any kind of scrutiny or undertaking a process of selection. The bench comprising Justices Abhay S. Oka, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, and Augustine George Masih said that such appointments are always subject to scrutiny and other criteria.

The apex court made the ruling after considering a plea filed by a native of Haryana whose application for a compassionate appointment was denied by the Haryana government. The complainant was 7 years old when his father, a police constable, passed away in 1997. After reaching adulthood in 2008, the complainant applied for the appointment, but the Haryana government did not grant the job. The government rejected the application based on a 1999 policy requiring that applications for compassionate appointments be made within three years of the employee’s death.