‘No sudden crisis after 20 years’: Madhya Pradesh High Court denies BSNL compassionate job to engineer son

“In the present case, more than twenty years have elapsed since the death of the employee. The family has not only survived, but the petitioner has completed his engineering education, which itself is indicative of a certain degree of financial stability. The very object of compassionate appointment, namely to tide over a sudden crisis, stands extinguished with the passage of time,” the April 7 order read. 

Justices Vivek Rusia and Pradeep Mittal were hearing the plea of the BSNL employee’s son, who lost his father in 2005.

No immediate financial crisis

• The court clarified that a claim pressed after twenty years cannot be said to address any “emergency”, and the emergency, if it ever existed, has long since passed. 
• The high court found that the whole reason for compassionate appointment, the mitigation of a sudden, immediate financial crisis, stands extinguished with the passage of time. 
• The high court noted that the family of the petitioner’s mother, two sisters (who were unmarried at the relevant time) and the petitioner himself have not only survived but managed their affairs through these two decades. 
• It was found that the petitioner had also completed his engineering degree during this period, which itself signifies that the family was not reduced to immediate penury or destitution.
• There was a prolonged silence, substantially on the petitioner’s side, noting that it was only in January 2020, fifteen years after the death of his father, that the petitioner came to know of the rejection of his application.
• The high court noted that the petitioner has also challenged the weightage point system prescribed in the BSNL’s policy as discriminatory under Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution, specifically on the ground that a widow receives 15 points, whereas a son/daughter receives zero.
• However, the court pointed out that the formulation of criteria for assessing financial indigence falls squarely within the policy-making domain of the employer. 
• The court also refrained from expressing any final view on the constitutional validity of the BSNL’s compassionate appointment policy, stating that the claim is independently and conclusively unsustainable on account of the passage of over twenty years and the family’s demonstrable survival. 
• The court also noted that the petitioner’s claim was not kept pending indefinitely nor ignored, but was actively considered on the merits within a reasonable period of time as per the prevailing administrative framework. 
• Therefore, the rejection cannot be said to be arbitrary or vitiated merely on account of the application of the BSNL’s company policy.

Lost father, endured life

It was placed on record that the father of the petitioner was working in BSNL and died in harness on April 2, 2005. 

Within a short span, the petitioner submitted an application for compassionate appointment on May 16, 2005. However, the petitioner allegedly received no response from the department for years. 

He filed a further application in March 2016 seeking an update. Later, the department communicated in January 2020 and informed the petitioner that his case had already been rejected by a letter dated July 6, 2015. 

The ground for the rejection, as stated by the department, was that he had secured only 39 points out of 100 under the compassionate appointment policy of BSNL, whereas the threshold was 55 points. 

The petitioner challenged the order as well as the communication before the tribunal, but the same was dismissed. Aggrieved by this action of the tribunal, the petitioner approached this high court in 2025. 

Family survived for 20 years

Representing the BSNL, advocate Shrikrishna Sharma submitted that BSNL adopted a uniform compassionate appointment policy, and the petitioner’s case was duly considered by the relevant committee in the year 2008 and was found to fall short of the minimum threshold of 55 points. 

Sharma further added that the death of the petitioner’s father occurred in April 2005, and more than two decades have elapsed since then, during which period the family has survived and managed its affairs.

“A family that has endured for over twenty years without the benefit of compassionate appointment cannot be said to be in sudden or immediate financial crisis, the foundational premise for any such appointment,” he added. 

No communication of rejection

Appearing for the petitioner, advocate Kabeer Paul argued that the rejection order of July 6, 2015, was never communicated to the petitioner, and the department has failed to produce any evidence of service of the said communication.

It was also urged that the weightage point system prescribed in the relevant policy of the company is discriminatory since it awards 15 points to a widow but zero points to a son/daughter.

It was additionally contended that the terminal benefits received by the family of the dead employee cannot be considered as a ground to deny compassionate appointment.