Child born of second marriage to be also eligible for appointment on compassionate grounds: Patna HC

PATNA: A full bench of Patna high court, in an important judgement, had held that a child born out of second marriage, even in subsistence of first marriage of a government servant, would also be eligible for appointment on compassionate ground.
The bench on Justice Ashwani Kumar Singh, Justice Birendra Kumar and Justice Anil Kumar Upadhyay had quashed a 14-year-old circular of state government to the extent that now a child of a government servant from second marriage could make his or her claim for getting appointed on compassionate ground.
In the judgement delivered on April 18, the full bench ruled that the claim for compassionate appointment to the dependents of deceased employee can be denied only if the employee had committed illegalities and misconduct is proved with punishment during his service career.
The judgement was delivered over petition of one Chandra Shekhar Paswan, whose father Mote Lal Paswan working as a line man in energy department, had died of cardiac arrest in Madhubani on January 12, 2007. The son was born from second wife of the employee while subsistence of first marriage and all heirs of More Lal collectively took decision that he should apply for appointment on compassionate ground as he was class-VIII pass. However, government had rejected his candidature in view of the circular.
The state government had rolled out circular on June 23, 2005 that compassionate appointment cannot be granted to the children born from the second marriage of a deceased employee except where the marriage was permitted by government taking into account personal law or any other condition under the Rule 23 of the Bihar Government Servant Conduct Rules, 1976.
The circular was rolled out after high court, without entering into controversy or considering entitlement of parties, had directed government while disposing of a writ petition filed by one Mustaque Ahmed to form a policy in the issue. Mustaque had filed after second wife of his deceased father, a government servant, had put objection that he was not entitled to appointment on compassionate ground.
The full bench’s judgement has referred to a Supreme Court judgement delivered by division bench of Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice MR Shah on December 11 last year in which court ruled that denying compassionate appointment, though law treats a child of a void marriage as legitimate, is deeply offensive to their dignity and is offensive to the constitutional guarantee against discrimination.
Supreme Court had taken considered Section 16(1) of Hindu Marriage Act which treats a child born from a marriage which is null and void as legitimate. The same was taken into consideration too by the high court full bench while delivering the judgement.