Allahabad HC Quashes Orders Withholding Salary of Compassionate Appointee Whose Husband Died in Harness
The Allahabad High Court set aside two salary-rejection orders, finding they violated natural justice and disregarded binding Division Bench directions on a Class-IV compassionate appointment.
The Allahabad High Court has quashed two orders dated 23 February 2021 and 8 March 2021 passed by the Director of Basic Education, Uttar Pradesh, which rejected Smt. Dharmwati Devi's claim for salary on a Class-IV post. Justice Manju Rani Chauhan, sitting singly, found that the orders were passed in breach of natural justice, relied on material collected behind the petitioner's back, and effectively reopened questions that a Division Bench of the same court had already settled in January 2020. The judgment also holds that an administrative approval which has never been revoked cannot be rendered ineffective by simply refusing to pay the salary that flows from it.
The Dispute Before the Court
Smt. Dharmwati Devi's husband, an Assistant Teacher at Kisan Vaidik Junior High School, Latifpur, District Gautam Buddh Nagar, died in harness on 15 June 2001. The school's management issued her an appointment letter dated 18 August 2001 for a Class-IV post on compassionate grounds, against a vacancy created by the termination of one Gajendra Singh on 3 July 1999. The petitioner did not immediately join; the Manager directed her to report by letter dated 15 June 2006, and she joined on 1 August 2006.
The Basic Shiksha Adhikari (BSA), Gautam Buddh Nagar, then approved her appointment by letter dated 6 September 2006. Shortly thereafter, the institution was brought on the grant-in-aid list by Government Order dated 2 December 2006, bringing it within the U.P. Junior High Schools (Payment of Salaries of Teachers and Other Employees) Act, 1978.
Trouble began when the Assistant Director of Education (Basic), Meerut/Saharanpur Division, issued a communication dated 16 March 2007 objecting that the petitioner's appointment had not followed the procedure prescribed for Class-IV employees. On the strength of that objection alone, and before any opinion was received from the Director of Education, the petitioner's salary was withheld. She had been without payment ever since.
An earlier round of litigation — Writ Petition No. 58845 of 2008, dismissed on 22 April 2011 — did not resolve her claim. She then preferred Special Appeal No. 898 of 2011. The Division Bench, by its order dated 18 January 2020, observed that there was no material on record to show the absence of a vacant Class-IV post at the time of appointment, and that the BSA's approval had never been revoked. It directed the competent authority to re-examine the entire matter and pass appropriate orders.
The competent authority re-examined and again rejected the petitioner's representation dated 10 June 2020, by orders dated 23 February 2021 and 8 March 2021. Those two orders are what the present writ petition challenged.
Three Grounds of Rejection and the Petitioner's Answer
The impugned orders rested on three premises. First, the appointment was not made in accordance with the statutory provisions governing Class-IV posts. Second, the Government Order dated 31 January 1997, which governs compassionate appointments, ceased to apply to the institution once it was brought on the grant-in-aid list on 2 December 2006. Third, no sanctioned Class-IV post existed in the institution after its inclusion in the grant-in-aid list.
The State's counsel, appearing before Justice Chauhan, defended those conclusions. He submitted that the U.P. Recognized Basic Schools (Junior High Schools) (Recruitment and Conditions of Service of Ministerial Staff and Group D Employees) Rules, 1984 (Rules of 1984) mandated a selection procedure which had admittedly not been followed. He further argued that the Government Orders dated 27 September 1991 and 31 January 1997 applied only to aided institutions, and since the school was unaided when the petitioner was purportedly appointed in 2001, neither order covered her case. The Divisional Recognition Committee meeting of 21 February 2007 had, on that basis, declined to approve her appointment.
Petitioner's counsel countered on several fronts. The Rules of 1984 do not govern compassionate appointments; those are exclusively regulated by the Government Order dated 31 January 1997. This court had repeatedly held that the said Government Order applies to unaided recognised institutions as well. The requisite documents had been forwarded by the Management; if the authorities then delayed processing, the petitioner could not be penalised for that delay. The proposal was forwarded well within the prescribed five-year window. The BSA had already granted approval, and that approval had never been withdrawn.
How the Court Reasoned
Justice Chauhan's analysis began with the continued existence of the BSA's approval order dated 6 September 2006. The court observed that the approval had never been withdrawn, recalled, or annulled by any competent authority. An administrative order that continues to operate cannot be rendered otiose by the simple expedient of refusing its consequential benefits. The court held that, so long as the approval subsists, the respondents are estopped from questioning its efficacy indirectly while simultaneously declining the salary flowing from it.
The court then turned to the Division Bench's findings of 18 January 2020. Those findings — that no material existed to show the absence of a vacant post or the cancellation of approval — constituted the binding framework within which the competent authority was required to act. Instead, the authority had reopened issues that stood concluded and had “virtually sat in appeal over the judgment of the Division Bench.” The court held that such an exercise is wholly impermissible and strikes at the foundation of the rule of law.
On natural justice, the court found that respondent no. 2 had relied on reports and communications submitted by respondent nos. 3 and 4 after the hearing had concluded, without providing copies to the petitioner or giving her an opportunity to rebut them. The impugned decision was thus founded on materials collected behind the petitioner's back. The court invoked the Constitution Bench decision in Mohinder Singh Gill v. Chief Election Commissioner, (1978) 1 SCC 405, for the proposition that an administrative order must stand or fall on the reasons recorded at the time and cannot be supplemented later by fresh reasons. It also cited Commissioner of Police Bombay v. Gordhandas Bhanji, AIR 1952 SC 16, for the rule that public orders cannot be construed in light of subsequent explanations.
The court addressed the argument that procedural lapses by the Management or the education authorities should defeat the petitioner's claim. Citing Asha Kaul (Mrs.) & Anr. v. State of Jammu & Kashmir & Ors., (1993) 2 SCC 573, the court held that where delay or procedural default is attributable to the authorities, an eligible candidate cannot be deprived of the benefits flowing from law. Once the petitioner submitted all requisite documents and the competent authority itself granted approval, any subsequent administrative lapse could not extinguish her accrued rights.
Justice Chauhan also addressed the nature of compassionate appointment as a concept. Such appointments are not a source of largesse but a measure of immediate social welfare intended to rescue the bereaved family of a deceased employee from financial destitution. The court held that the beneficial object of the governing Government Orders deserved a purposive and liberal construction, not a hyper-technical reading that defeats the object.
On the question of reasoned decision-making, the court cited Kranti Associates (P) Ltd. v. Masood Ahmed Khan, (2010) 9 SCC 496, for the requirement that cogent reasons are an indispensable component of fairness in administrative and quasi-judicial decision-making. The impugned orders, the court found, neither disclosed proper application of mind nor demonstrated consideration of the binding directions of the Division Bench.
The court concluded that the respondents had acted in complete disregard of binding judicial directions, violated natural justice, proceeded on an erroneous understanding of the applicable Government Orders, and arbitrarily deprived the petitioner of salary despite a subsisting approval order. Such action was held to be plainly violative of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.
Order
The orders dated 23 February 2021 and 8 March 2021 were quashed. Writ Petition No. 6103 of 2021 was allowed.