Criminal proceedings against a deceased employee’s widow cannot be used to deny their son’s claim for compassionate appointment in Haryana, the Supreme Court has said.
A bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice N Kotiswar Singh allowed the appeal of Atul Chauhan, whose plea for compassionate appointment had hung in limbo after his mother was accused of conspiring in the murder of his father, a government school teacher in Haryana.
Atul’s father, Gajender Singh Chauhan, a Junior Basic Teacher, died in a road accident in September 2021. Pushpa Devi, the widow of the deceased, was charged with conspiring to eliminate him. However, a trial court acquitted her in October 2024, giving her the benefit of the doubt. An appeal against her acquittal is pending.
The Haryana authorities refused to process Atul’s claim for compassionate appointment, citing Rule 23(1), which suspends compassionate financial assistance where a family member is accused of murdering or abetting the murder of the deceased employee.
While upholding the validity of Rule 23(1), the bench on Thursday clarified that the suspension during such proceedings applied only to financial assistance, not to appointments. The language of Rule 23(1) was confined exclusively to “compassionate financial assistance” and could not be extended to compassionate appointments, it said.
The court suggested that the Haryana Government should consider amending the rules to address the legislative gap.
“There is no legal impediment to the respondents, the state government, considering and deciding the appellant Chauhan’s claim for compassionate appointment on its own merits, strictly in accordance with the eligibility conditions and requirements prescribed under the Rules of 2019,” it said.
Setting aside a Punjab and Haryana High Court verdict which upheld the application of Rule 23(1) of the Haryana Civil Services (Compassionate Financial Assistance or Appointment) Rules, 2019, in Chauhan’s case, the top court directed state authorities to consider his claim on merits within three months. It added that compassionate appointment is not a vested right.
