The Madras High Court on Thursday directed the State government to recover costs of ₹1 lakh from salaries of officials who did not consider a plea for compassionate appointment made way back in 1998 and ordered that the money be paid to the applicant.
Justice R. Mahadevan passed the order while disposing of a writ petition pending in the court since 2016. The judge also directed the government to consider the petitioner’s request for compassionate appointment since her father, a government schoolteacher, had died in harness in 1998.
Representing the writ petitioner T. Aruljothi, her counsel K. Selvaraj told the court that her father M. Tamilarasu was serving as a post graduate assistant in a government higher secondary school. He died on February 2, 1998 leaving behind his wife, two daughters and one son. The petitioner before the court was his second daughter.
After his death, the petitioner’s mother made a representation on February 27, 1998 seeking a job on compassionate grounds for her son. However, on December 11, 2000, the then District Educational Officer in Pollachi turned down the request on the ground that the plea for compassionate employment must be made by the first legal heir.
Thereafter, the petitioner’s mother sent another representation on January 29, 2001 stating that she was not interested in taking up employment due to her age and that her first daughter too was not interested since she was married. Therefore, a request was made to provide the job to the petitioner who was her second daughter.
Since there was no progress on the second representation, she lodged a complaint with the Chief Minister’s special cell in 2003 and received a reply from the DEO stating that there was a ban on public employment. Finally, on July 27, 2016 her second representation got rejected on the ground that she could not maintain two representations, one seeking job for her son and another seeking a job for her daughter.
Disturbed by such a reply, the petitioner had moved the High Court in 2016 seeking a direction to appoint her in a suitable job in the school education department.
