Relax dying-in-harness rules, consider pleas for compassionate jobs: HC to UP govt

The Allahabad High Court today asked the Uttar Pradesh government to relax its dying-in-harness rules and reconsider a bunch of pleas for state jobs on compassionate grounds to the dependents of its employees, who died on duty more than five years ago.

A bench of Justice RSR Maurya asked the government to reconsider the pleas after relaxing the statutory five year limit for seeking jobs on compassionate grounds and after duly ascertaining if its late employees' families were facing undue hardships.

The bench said irrespective of the pleas for compassionate jobs having been made after the lapse of statutory five year limit, the government's decisions on them would be deemed "arbitrary" and "made on irrelevant considerations" if the same were not arrived at after due consideration of the due hardships faced by the dependents.

The court gave its ruling on a bunch of pleas challenging the government's decision to refuse compassionate jobs to the dependents of its employees, who died on duty, on the ground that the jobs had been sought after lapse of the five year limit.

The pleas to the court had been made by several state natives, including one Antariksha Singh.

The petitioners had moved the court for quashing the state government orders, which refused to condone the delay under proviso to rule 5 of the UP Recruitment of Dependents of Government Servants Dying In Harness Rules, 1974.

Allowing the petitions, the court observed that while examining the undue hardships faced by the dependents, the state should judge it from the yardstick of total income of family from all sources.

The government should keep in mind that if the total income of the family from all possible sources exceeds the salary of the deceased employees, it can be said that no undue hardship was caused to the family, the bench said.

Allowing the writ petitions, the court directed the government to reconsider the claim of compassionate appointments and relaxation of the time limit, after examining the "undue hardship" to the family within a period of two months.