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An analytical observation about the usual “dispose of the representation” orders passed by the High Court’s & Tribunals was made by a Supreme Court bench, comprising of Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Hemant Gupta while examining an appeal filed by the Central Government.
The Bench observed:
“This ‘dispose of the representation’ mantra isincreasingly permeating the judicial process in the HighCourts and the Tribunals. Such orders may make for aquick or easy disposal of cases in overburdenedadjudicatory institutions. But, they do no service tothe cause of justice.”
This came up when a representation was made for compassionate appointment by P. Venkatesh, son of a deceased Central Government Employee who worked in Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. A representation filed was rejected in the year 1997 & since then the representation filed by him have been facing rejections. After more than a decade, P. Venkatesh moved to the Central Administrative Tribunal. The Tribunal directed the Government to take into consideration his representation for compassionate appointment.
In an order passed in the year 2013, the Tribunal had rejected Venkatesh claim which was later favoured & passed by the High Court, directing the Government to grant him compassionate employment. The Bench stated:
"Such orders may make for a quick or easy disposal of cases in overburdened adjudicatory institutions. But, they do no service to the cause of justice. The litigant is back again before the Court, as this case shows, having incurred attendant costs and suffered delays of the legal process."
“2...The whole object of granting compassionate employment is thus to enable the family to tide over the sudden crisis. The object is not to give a member of such family a post much less a post for post held by the deceased. What is further, mere death of an employee in harness does not entitle his family to such source of livelihood. The Government or the public authority concerned has to examine the financial condition of the family of the deceased, and it is only if it is satisfied, that but for the provision of employment, the family will not be able to meet the crisis that a job is to be offered to theeligible member of the family. The posts in Classes III and IV are the lowest posts in non-manual and manual categories and hence they alone can be offered on compassionate grounds, the object being to relieve the family, of the financial destitution and to help it get over the emergency.”
The Bench observed that such a situation could have been avoided in the first place by filing for counter and finalising the dispute at hand.
"The recourse to the Tribunal suffered from a delay of over a decade in the first instance. This staleness of the claim took away the very basis of providing compassionate appointment. The claim was liable to be rejected on that ground and ought to have been so rejected. The judgment of the High Court is unsustainable."
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