THE BEYOND OBITER LAW BLOG: Legal News
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The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutional validity of Rule 23(1) of the Haryana Civil Services (Compassionate Financial Assistance or Appointment) Rules, 2019, which suspends compassionate financial assistance where an eligible family member is accused of murdering or abetting the murder of a deceased government employee. However, the Court clarified that the provision applies only to claims for compassionate financial assistance and cannot be extended to claims for compassionate appointment.
The judgment was delivered by a Bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice N. Kotiswar Singh.
The case arose after the appellant’s father, a government school teacher in Haryana, died under suspicious circumstances. The appellant's mother was prosecuted for allegedly conspiring in his murder. Although she was later acquitted by the trial court, an appeal against the acquittal remained pending. Relying on Rule 23(1), the authorities kept the appellant’s request for compassionate appointment in abeyance, a decision subsequently upheld by the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
Before the Supreme Court, the appellant argued that Rule 23(1) expressly applies only to compassionate financial assistance and not to compassionate appointment. The State, on the other hand, contended that both benefits formed part of a single welfare scheme and that permitting appointment while withholding financial assistance would create an anomalous situation.
Examining the scheme of the 2019 Rules, the Court held that the language of Rule 23(1) is clear and unambiguous. The provision, including its marginal heading, is confined to compassionate financial assistance and does not contain any restriction relating to compassionate appointment.
The Bench observed:
“Rule 23(1) of the Rules of 2019, by its express language and its marginal heading, applies only to claims for ‘compassionate financial assistance’. It does not, by its text or by any permissible process of interpretation, extend to a claim for ‘compassionate appointment’. The Respondent-State erred as a matter of law in invoking Rule 23(1) to defer the Appellant's claim for compassionate appointment. The High Court equally erred in upholding that application.”
The Court reiterated that compassionate appointment is not a vested right and can be granted only in accordance with the governing rules. Equally, however, the State cannot deny or defer such a claim without a clear statutory basis. It held that courts cannot introduce restrictions that the rule-making authority itself has not incorporated.
Emphasising the limits of judicial interpretation, the Court observed:
“We must, however, be clear that this Court cannot remedy the anomaly by reading into the Rules a provision which the legislature/State has not formulated. The judicial function is to apply the law as it is. It is for the Rule-making authority/State and the executive, in exercise of the rule-making power under Article 309, to clarify and rectify the legislative lacunae.”
The Bench further found that the High Court had incorrectly imported the sequential priority structure applicable to compassionate financial assistance into the provisions governing compassionate appointments. It noted that while the rules relating to financial assistance create a cascading order of entitlement through the use of the word “failing”, no such restriction exists in the provision dealing with compassionate appointments.
The Court held:
“The sequential bar applicable to claims for compassionate financial assistance under Rule 5(1)(f), expressed through the cascading ‘failing’ formulation in each sub-clause thereof, has no counterpart in Rule 5(1)(g), which governs compassionate appointment. Rule 5(1)(g) contains no ‘failing’ language. The High Court erred in importing the sequential bar from Rule 5(1)(f) into the domain of Rule 5(1)(g). No absolute statutory bar prevents the consideration of the Appellant’s claim for appointment on the sole ground that the widow’s prior claim under Rule 5(1)(g) has not been conclusively determined.”
While upholding Rule 23(1) as constitutionally valid and consistent with Article 14, the Court described it as a preventive and regulatory measure intended to ensure that a person accused of causing the employee’s death does not receive State-funded financial benefits pending adjudication. At the same time, the Court acknowledged a legislative anomaly in the scheme, noting that while financial assistance is suspended during criminal proceedings, no similar restriction exists in relation to compassionate appointments. The Court observed that such a gap may require correction by the State through appropriate amendments, but it could not be cured through judicial interpretation.
Accordingly, the Court set aside the High Court’s judgment and directed the competent authorities to consider the appellant’s claim for compassionate appointment on its own merits, strictly in accordance with the applicable rules and uninfluenced by the pending criminal appeal against his mother. The exercise was directed to be completed within three months.