Central Bank of India vs Nitin
Background
A bank employee took voluntary premature retirement in 2015 on medical grounds. His son then applied for compassionate appointment at the bank, but concealed in his application that he was already employed as a clerk at another bank (ICICI Bank), and only resigned from that job about eight months after applying. A four-member committee rejected the son's application because the retired employee's family income (including pension and retiral benefits) exceeded the 60%-of-last-salary threshold fixed by the bank's compassionate appointment scheme for eligibility. The Bombay High Court (Aurangabad Bench) set aside that rejection, holding the family's financial position could not be a ground to deny compassionate appointment, and directed the bank to reconsider the son's case.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held the High Court was clearly wrong: compassionate appointment is a scheme-based exception to the normal rule of equal opportunity, meant only to help genuinely indigent families of a deceased or medically incapacitated employee tide over sudden financial crisis. It is not an entitlement, and there is no right to such appointment outside the specific scheme's own terms. Financial eligibility criteria in such schemes are valid and must be applied strictly, since diluting them would let less-needy families take slots meant for the most distressed. The Court also noted the High Court entirely overlooked that the son had suppressed his ICICI Bank employment in his application: a fact that, on its own, was enough to defeat his claim. The appeal was allowed and the High Court's order set aside.
Lesson Learnt
Compassionate appointment is not an automatic right of a deceased or retired employee's dependent; it exists only within, and strictly according to, the employer's own scheme (including its financial-eligibility conditions), and concealing material facts like existing employment in the application can be fatal to the claim on its own.