Bombay High Court Upholds Compassionate Appointments After Years of Service

Aadrikaa Legal Services (ALS)- Law I Litigation I Arbitration

Date: 02.11.2026

Bombay High Court Upholds Compassionate Appointments After Years of Service

The Bombay High Court has set aside attempts to cancel the compassionate appointments of two Maharashtra government employees after finding that the State had wrongly treated their deceased fathers’ posts as Group B solely because of the pay scale attached to them.

Background of the dispute

The case combined petitions filed by Avinash Kondiram Wagh and Abhay Chandrakant Khond against the State of Maharashtra and officials in the Vocational Education and Training Department.

Both petitioners had received government employment on compassionate grounds after their fathers died while in service:

• Avinash Wagh was appointed as a Group Instructor in 2004 after his father, a junior clerk, died in service.
• Abhay Khond was appointed as a Junior Clerk-cum-Typist in 2008 after his father, a Training Officer, died in service.

They completed probation, were confirmed in service, and continued working for years. In 2010, however, departmental authorities issued show-cause notices proposing to cancel their appointments. The authorities argued that the posts held by the deceased employees carried the pay scale of Rs. 6,500–10,500 and therefore fell within Group B, whose dependants were allegedly not eligible for compassionate appointment under the policy then relied upon by the State.

The Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal dismissed the petitioners’ challenges in 2014. The High Court had meanwhile protected their employment during the litigation.

Court’s key finding: Pay scale alone does not determine classification

The central issue was whether the State could classify the relevant posts as Group B merely because of their pay scale.

The Division Bench held that it could not. It found that the authorities had selectively relied on the Government Resolution of 2 July 2002 and an internal departmental letter dated 19 May 2010, without considering later government resolutions that specifically classified the posts in question.

For Wagh’s case, the Court noted that multiple government resolutions treated the post of Group Instructor, carrying the disputed pay scale, as a Group C (Technical) post. These included resolutions dated:

• 22 October 2008;
• 31 March 2010;
• 14 May 2010; and
• 31 August 2010.

The State did not establish that any of these resolutions had been withdrawn, superseded, or invalidated. The Court also observed that the departmental letter did not reconcile its position with these specific classifications.

In Khond’s case, the respondents had admitted that his father was employed in a Class III post. The Court found no valid basis for subsequently treating that post as Group B. Khond himself had been appointed to a Group C post as Junior Clerk-cum-Typist.

Long service and absence of wrongdoing mattered

The High Court also relied on fairness and equity. Both petitioners had been appointed by competent authorities, completed probation, and served continuously for nearly two decades. Neither was accused of fraud, misrepresentation, suppression of facts, or misconduct.

The Court held that it would be seriously prejudicial and disproportionate to unsettle their employment after such a long period, particularly because they had crossed the usual age limits for entering government service.

Referring to the Supreme Court decision in Md. Zamil Ahmed v. State of Bihar, the Court reiterated that the State should not take advantage of its own alleged mistake after a long delay when the employee had not secured appointment through deception or concealment.

Compassionate appointment is a beneficial measure

The judgment restated that compassionate appointment is an exception to ordinary recruitment rules. Its purpose is to provide immediate financial support to a family facing hardship after the death of its earning member.

The Court held that cancelling confirmed appointments decades later would undermine that objective. Once the petitioners had become confirmed employees, their service could not be taken away except in accordance with law and applicable service rules.

The Court also noted that Maharashtra expanded its compassionate-appointment policy in September 2021 to cover dependants of employees in Groups A and B as well as Groups C and D. While this later policy did not retrospectively decide the petitioners’ entitlement, it showed that the earlier restriction had since been broadened.

Outcome

The High Court allowed both writ petitions and set aside the Tribunal’s 2014 order insofar as it had dismissed the petitioners’ original applications. The proposed cancellation of their compassionate appointments was held unsustainable.

The ruling is expressly confined to the particular facts of these cases and is not to be treated as a precedent for other matters. Its core message is nevertheless clear: government authorities must consider all applicable classification rules and cannot undo long-standing compassionate appointments on a narrow or inconsistent reading of policy, especially where the employees acted in good faith and have served for many years.

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Source: Bombay High Court

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