The Telangana High Court recently overturned a lower court’s decision to grant a compassionate appointment to the widow of a part-time school employee. The court said part-time workers cannot be treated as having died in harness like regular employees and upheld the zilla parishad’s denial of the appointment based on the deceased’s employment status.
The high court allowed the writ appeal filed by the chief executive officer of the zilla parishad in the Vikarabad district against the claim of respondent no. 1, B Kistamma, the wife of the late Ramachandraiah, who passed away in 2016 while working at a primary school.
In the judgment dated September 15, the division bench of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice G M Mohiuddin found fault with the lower court and said it had committed an “error”.
She had approached the lower court seeking a compassionate appointment, arguing her husband’s services should have been regularised.
The zilla parishad CEO, the appellant, initially rejected her claim in a speaking order dated October 22, 2016, on the grounds that her husband was appointed as a part-time worker in 1986 and had not completed the ten years of continuous service before the specified cutoff date (November 25, 1993) required for regularisation under government orders.
The lower court then allowed the widow’s petition, setting aside the rejection order and directing a compassionate appointment. However, the high court found fault with this, noting that the petitioner did not directly challenge the rejection order itself.
Delivering the judgment, the high court emphasised that the deceased did not meet the eligibility norms for regularisation. “Regularisation of the services of husband of respondent No.1 could not be made as his case was not falling within the scope of the above government orders.”
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The bench stated, “The claim of respondent No.1 for compassionate appointment could not be considered as her husband, the part-time worker, could not be treated as died in harness as a regular employee.”
The judges concluded that the lower court had erred by granting relief without the necessary challenge to the initial rejection order, stating: “The learned writ court thereby committed error. Therefore, we are inclined to interfere with the order passed by the learned writ court.”
Consequently, the high court set aside the lower court’s order and allowed the writ appeal, upholding the zilla parishad’s decision to deny the compassionate appointment on the technical grounds of the deceased’s employment status.
