PATNA, India, Aug. 7 -- Patna High Court issued the following judgment on July 16:

Heard Mr. S. B. K. Manglam, learned Advocate for the petitioner and Mr. Dhurendra Kumar, learned Advocate for the State.

2. The petitioner is aggrieved with the order, as contained in Memo No. 1647 dated 25.10.2018, issued under the signature of respondent no.6 whereby the petitioner has been informed that since the services of her husband could not have been absorbed in the Collectorate services until his death on 22.05.2018, she would neither be entitled for the benefit of compassionate appointment nor she would be entitled for family pension.

3. Mr. S. B. K. Mangalam, learned Advocate for the petitioner referring to the averments made in the writ petition has contended that admittedly the petitioner's husband discharged his continuous and unblemished service in the Bihar Textile Corporation and on account of the Corporation having been declared non-functional, the services of the erstwhile employees, including the petitioner's husband, was deputed in Bhagalpur Treasury, as a Lower Division Clerk, vide Memo No. 49 dated 21.02.2002.

4. Referring to Annexure-P/1, he submits that admittedly the petitioner's husband was allowed to work till his death on 22.05.2018 in the Bhagalpur Treasury. In the meanwhile, the Government of Bihar, in the Department of Finance vide its Resolution contained in Letter no. 796 dated 02.02.2018 has taken a conscious decision to absorb the services of the employees of the Board, Corporation and the Society in different departments of the State Government. In pursuant to the aforesaid policy decision, other identically situated persons, who were working in the Corporation and different Boards, their services have been absorbed.

5. It is the specific case of the petitioner that an identically situated person, who was also working in the Textile Corporation, namely, Pawan Kumar, whose service was also deputed along with the petitioner's husband in Bhagalpur Treasury, has been absorbed in the Collectorate, Bhagalpur vide order as contained in Memo No. 208 dated 06.02.2019. Had the absorption been made just after coming into force of the policy decision and before the death of the petitioner's husband, his services would have certainly been absorbed and the petitioner would have been entitled to get compassionate appointment and other retiral benefit, but only on account of the laches on the part of the respondent authorities, the petitioner has been deprived from her rightful claim. To support the aforesaid contention, reliance has also been placed on a decision rendered by the learned Division Bench of Bombay High Court in the case of All India Groundnut Syndicate Ltd. Vs. I.T. Commissioner, Bombay, reported in, AIR 1954 Bom. 232 wherein the Court held as follows:

"But the most surprising contention is put forward by the Department that because their own officer failed to discharge his statutory duty, the assessee is deprived of his right which the law has given to him under Sub-section (2) of Section 24. In other words, the Department wants to benefit from and wants to take advantage of its own default. It is an elementary principle of law that no person--we take it that the Income-tax Department is included in that definition--can put forward his own default in defence to a right assert -ed by the other party. A person cannot say that the party claiming the right is deprived of that right because "I have committed a default and the right is lost because of that default."

6. Further reliance has also been placed on a decision rendered in the case of State of Maharashtra vs. Jagannath Achyut Karandikar, reported in AIR 1989 SC 1133 wherein the Apex Court has held as follows:

xxx It would be unjust, unreasonable and arbitrary to penalise a person for the default of the Government to hold the examination every year. That does not also appear to be the intent or purpose of the 1962 Rules. Xxx

The rest of the document can be viewed at https://patnahighcourt.gov.in/viewjudgment/MTUjMTg4NTUjMjAxOSMxI04=-f8MvOUpEvPc=

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