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Union of India v. Amrita Sinha

Civil Appeal · 2021 INSC 868Decided 11 Dec 2021
Civil Appeal Nos. 7640-7641 of 2021
Dr. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud · Justice A.S. Bopanna

Background

The respondent's husband, an Indian Air Force Sergeant, died of cancer while in service, leaving her and two minor children. Her application for a compassionate appointment was evaluated under a government merit-points scheme, but she was denied because the family pension she was receiving at the time (Rs 8,265/month) pulled down her merit score. She argued this was unfair because that pension amount would later reduce after ten years. The Central Administrative Tribunal and the Madras High Court both ruled in her favour, directing the authorities to reconsider her case without counting the then-current family pension.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court allowed the Union of India's appeal and reversed both the Tribunal and the High Court. It held that evaluating a compassionate appointment claim based on the family's financial position at the time the application is considered is the correct approach, and that the pension actually being received at that time was rightly counted, regardless of the fact that it would be reduced a decade later. The Court emphasized that compassionate appointment is not a vested right but a scheme meant to help a family cope with an immediate financial crisis, and absent clear arbitrariness in how the scheme was applied, courts should not interfere with the authorities' evaluation.

Lesson Learnt

Compassionate appointment is assessed strictly against the applicable scheme and the family's financial circumstances as they exist at the time of the decision: it is not an automatic entitlement, and courts generally won't second-guess the government's merit-point evaluation unless it is shown to be arbitrary.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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