Excluding married daughter from definition of dependent for compassionate appointment discriminatory: Rajasthan High Court

In a significant ruling, a full bench of the Rajasthan High Court has held that going forward married daughters will be able to apply for government jobs on compassionate grounds, in parity with a married son or an unmarried daughter [Priyanka Shrimali v State of Rajasthan]..A three-judge bench comprising Justices Sandeep Mehta, Vijay Bishnoi and Arun Bhansali has ruled that leaving out 'married daughter' from the definition of 'dependents' under the Rajasthan Compassionate Appointment of Dependents of Deceased Government Servant Rules, 1996 was clearly discriminative..The court noted that the assumption that a married daughter would invariably not be dependent on the government servant was based on surmises, oblivious of present-day social realities."At the same time including a dependent married son, while leaving out a dependent married daughter from the definition, is clearly discriminative", the court went on to note. In making this observation, the argument of the State government that a married daughter would be dependent on her husband or her-in-laws was rejected. .The bench was dealing with a reference on the question of whether the use of the word "unmarried" in the rules violated the fundamental right of equality of a married daughter, since the provision allowed a married son to seek a government job on compassionate grounds but not a married daughter. .The bench, in its judgment, underscored that when there was an equal duty cast on both sons and daughters to maintain aged parents under the Senior Citizens Act, and in this light the assumption seeking to distinguish between a married son and daughter for compassionate appointment could not be sustained."Yardstick, for extending the benefit of compassionate appointment in terms of the Rules is and should be dependency of the dependents on the deceased government servant and, therefore, their marital status only should not be an impediment for consideration on compassionate ground.".The bench also refused to accept the contention of the State that if the word was struck down, several such cases would come up. It clarified that cases in which appointments were already made would not be affected by this judgment and it would only be applicable to matters where applications were pending or were yet to be made. .Thus, it was concluded that the word "unmarried" deprived a married daughter from the right of consideration for compassionate appointment, violated the equality clause and could not be countenanced.With this word "unmarried" was struck down from the rules, which will now only be "daughters"..Advocates Vinay Jain, Dr Nupur Bhati, Harish Purohit, MS Purohit Rakesh Kalla and Manish Pitaliya appeared for the petitioners. Additional Advocate Generals Manish Vyas, Sunil Beniwal, Sudhri Tak along with advocates Saransh Vij and Vikram Chaudhary represented the State. .[Read Judgment]