The Madras High Court, on Friday (July 10), permitted the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) led state government to give government jobs to families of victims who lost their lives in the Karur stampede tragedy in September last year. The bench, however, said that the appointments would be temporary and subject to judicial review.

The bench of Justice CV Karthikeyan and Justice R Sakthivel of the Madurai bench observed that it would be extremely narrow of the court to interfere with a policy decision of the government. The bench thus permitted the state to proceed with a public function, scheduled to be held at 3 pm today, to give appointment letters to the families of the deceased.

"It would be extremely narrow for the court to interfere with a policy decision of the government. The state shall thus proceed with the function on the condition that employment would be on a temporary basis, subject to judicial review, and we intend to hear the matter by the end of this month, before the prospective persons to whom employment is offered, would receive their first salary," the bench said.

The bench also suo motu impleaded the Member Secretary of the Public Service Commission and asked him to file a report with resoect to the guidelines to be followed while making compassionate appointments and whether such guidelines were followed in the present case.

The court made the observations in a plea filed by Theeran Thirumurugan, a lawyer from Madurai, challenging the decision of the newly formed government, headed by CM Vijay's Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) party, to provide government jobs to the families of 41 persons who lost their lives in the Karur stampede tragedy in September last year.

The petitioner had sought directions to the Chief Secretary, Additional Chief Secretary, Secretary (Personnel and Administrative Reforms Department), Secretary (Home Department), Secretary (Revenue and Disaster Management Department), and the District Collector (Karur) to forbear from issuing or implementing any Government appointment order arising from the Karur stampede, till proceedings before the Supreme Court attain finality.

The petitioner submitted that there is no uniform policy for providing permanent government employment is such cases of tragedy. It has been submitted that when Government employment is provided in respect to one incident, it would raise serious issues relating to equality and equal opportunity under Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.

The petitioner submitted that every individual who possesses the required qualification has a constitutional right to compete for public employment. He added that there was no uniform policy explaining the criteria and legal framework under which the Government appointments are proposed to be made in cases of such tragedy. In the absence of such uniform guidelines, the petitioner submitted that the present proposal was arbitrary, unreasonable, and contrary to the constitutional mandate under Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.

The petitioner submitted that since the proceedings in connection with the Karur tragedy were pending before the Supreme Court, granting irreversible administrative benefits would result in avoidable legal and administrative consequences. The petitioner thus sought directions to the authorities not to act upon such appointment orders till the matter had attained finality in the Supreme Court.

When the matter was taken up today, the petitioner argued that the grant of government jobs would be violative of rules and guidelines now in force with respect to compassionate appointment, which are to be strictly followed.

To this, the State counsel informed the court that an intervening application was filed in the Supreme Court in the pending matter in which one of the prayers raised was against the grant of government jobs. It was submitted that this petition was later withdrawn. The state counsel also pointed out a precedent wherein the families of the Thoothukudi police firing were given government jobs.

To this, the court said that a distinction would be drawn as the Thoothukudi incident was one of police excess by the State, but the Karur incident could not be said to be one of police excess by the State.

Case Title: Theeran Thirumurugan @ Thirumurugan v The Chief Secretary

Case No: WP(MD) 19539 of 2026