Rahul v. The New India Assurance Company Limited
Background
The appellant's father, an insurance company employee, applied for voluntary retirement on medical grounds, supported by a civil surgeon's certificate of permanent incapacity, a few months before he was due to turn 55, the cut-off age under the company's compassionate-appointment scheme. He sent two follow-up reminders before turning 55, but the company neither acted on his application nor told him a Medical Board certificate (rather than a civil surgeon's certificate) was required until after he had already crossed 55. He promptly obtained the Medical Board certificate once asked, but the company later rejected his son's compassionate-appointment claim on the technical ground that the formal retirement had gone through after age 55.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that a company cannot sit on a time-sensitive application, delay communicating what it needed, and then use the consequences of its own delay to defeat the employee's dependent's claim. Since the employee had applied and supplied medical proof before turning 55, and had complied within days once the Medical Board requirement was actually communicated, the Court found the rejection unsustainable and set aside both the company's rejection letter and the High Court judgment that had upheld it. It directed the company to grant the son compassionate appointment within eight weeks, with an age relaxation if needed given how long the matter had dragged on.
Lesson Learnt
An employer or authority cannot rely on delay of its own making to deny a benefit or claim: the well-established principle that "a wrongdoer cannot profit from his own wrong" applies squarely to administrative bodies handling time-bound applications.