Standard Of Family's Indigence For Compassionate Appointment Can't Be Interpreted As 'Beggary': Rajasthan High Court

The Rajasthan High Court has held that the technical definition of “indigent” under Order XXXIII, Rule 1 of CPC, could not be transposed mechanically into the domain of compassionate appointment as that would reduce the scheme illusory,by imposing a threshold that no eligible family could practically meet.

“Indigent Person” under CPC meant that a person who did not possess sufficient means to pay the requisite court fees and was not entitled to property worth one thousand rupees.

“…no person engaged in public or private employment, who receives a regular salary, allowances, statutory benefits or retiral dues can ever fall within such an extreme definition of indigence that equates to beggary or absolute pauperism. Extending this standard posthumously to the dependents of a deceased government employee is wholly unrealistic, for no class of salaried employees could ever satisfy such a test,” Justice Farjand Ali said.

The bench made these observations while setting aside the State's order of rejecting compassionate appointment to the petitioner on the ground that the family was not found to be in indigent or penurious conditions, and had received a huge amount as terminal benefits after the death of the concerned employee.

The Court took into account certain facts to the effect that the deceased was the sole breadwinner for the family, and had remained ill for four years before expiring. Even though substantial recoveries were made by the family from terminal dues, the family also had to incur heavy liabilities of bank and personal loans to meet the employee's medical expenses.

Furthermore, the family continued to reside in a rented accommodation, without having any other independent source of subsistence.

In this light, the Court held that adopting “indigence simpliciter” as determinative yardstick for compassionate appointment would render the scheme otiose. Rather, the very objective of the scheme was to prevent destitution, and not to wait till destitution was conclusively established.

The Court also made a reference to Rule 10 of the scheme that recognized that existence of an earning member did not automatically disqualified the family. Underscoring this, the Court observed,

“Thus, the Scheme itself proceeds on the assumption that a family may still be in financial distress despite having an earning member…If compassionate appointment can be granted even where an earning member exists, then rejection on the basis that the family is “not indigent” becomes logically incoherent and legally specious.”

Furthermore, the Court stated that reliance on terminal dues, without any context was misplaced. It was a settled law that terminal benefits could not be treated as perennial income nor could be used to deny relief, especially when most of it was consumed in medical expenses. If such benefits were treated as source of livelihood of family, no family of public servant would qualify for compassionate appointment.

“The mechanical conclusion that the family “is not indigent”, without a holistic appreciation of liabilities, household expenses, medical debt and lack of sustained income, reflects a non-application of mind and is inconsistent with the humanitarian objective of compassionate appointment.”

It was held that the State adopted a rigid and flawed standard of “indigent” and failed to appreciate that the real test of compassionate appointment was not whether the family had become destitute, but whether the dependent was financially reliant on the deceased employee and faced immediate hardship due to cessation of his income.

The Court held that the challenged order was based on “stereotyped reasoning, absence of contextual analysis and an excessively narrow approach inconsistent with the protective purpose of the scheme”.

Accordingly, the petition was allowed, and the matter was remanded to the concerned authority to be considered afresh.

Title: Harjeet Singh v Oriental Bank of Commerce and Anr.

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Raj) 393

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