Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Nov 15: High Court today imposed costs on the then Chief Conservator of Forests for misrepresenting the Court order and directed the authorities to consider the claim of petitioner for compassionate appointment.
Justice Sanjay Kumar Gupta quashed the rejection order for petitioner’s appointment on compassionate grounds and directed the authorities to reconsider the claim of the petitioner as per directions of the Court passed way back in 2007.
Court further directed the authorities to complete the whole exercise within six weeks from the date of receipt of order otherwise it shall be taken seriously.
Court also imposed costs of Rs 25000 on then Chief conservative of Forests Nissar Ahmad who the court said, has deliberately misinterpreted the Court order passed in earlier writ petition of the Gulzar Ahmad Khan.
“So he is burdened personally with costs of Rs.25,000 on account of wastage of time of this court and costs of litigation. Out of this costs, Rs10,000 shall be paid to petitioner as costs of litigation and rest of money shall be deposited in Advocate Welfare fund”, court directed.
Court further directed him to deposit the costs within two months from the date of order, otherwise Registrar Judicial shall forward a copy of this order to Director Accounts for recovery of costs from his pay or if he has retired then from his pension.
Khan was in third round of litigation before the Court for seeking compassionate appointment in the Forest Department on account of death of his father way back in the year 1977 who was forest guard in the department at the time of his death.
The plea of petitioner before the Court was that his father who was an employee of the Forest Department, died in harness on 23.08.1977. He was minor at that time and was engaged by Principal Chief Conservator of Forests in terms of his order dated 23.03.1999 as casual labor on casual basis till formal sanction for appointment of petitioner on compassionate grounds was to be issued by the Govt. After passing of Pre-University Class, he applied under the relevant SRO in so far as compassionate appointment is concerned.
His case was forwarded for compassionate appointment to the Administrative Department for grant of sanction and Administrative Department after perusing the relevant documents didn’t take any decision which compelled him to knock the doors of the Court to redress his grievances.
Authorities have rejected the claim of petitioner on the main grounds that long time has elapsed since his father has expired and after expiry of considerable time, the petitioner has no locus standi to claim appointment on compassionate grounds.
Secondly vide SRO-43 of 1994 dated 22.02.1994 as in terms of Rule-3 of the SRO, the petitioner had to attain the eligibility and qualification within a period of one year from the date of death of the deceased.
“Both the grounds legally and factually, not tenable. Because authority while passing the impugned order did not go through the whole order of High Court dated 19.12.2007”, Justice Kumar said.
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