Madhya Pradesh High Court Union Bank of India news: The Madhya Pradesh High Court has set aside a Union Bank of India (UBI) order that denied a compassionate appointment to the son of the employee who has passed away, and expressed surprise at how the bank weaponised the alleged unsatisfactory service record of the petitioner’s father to reject his claim.
While hearing a plea of a late employee’s son, Justice Jai Kumar Pillai observed that dependents applying under such benevolent schemes are already battling severe penury and sudden financial destitution, subjecting them to mechanical, cryptic, or arbitrary rejections based on extraneous grounds not explicitly mentioned in the scheme, cruelly defeating the very objective of the welfare measure, and inflicting unwarranted harassment upon vulnerable citizens.
“This court is utterly surprised as to how the alleged unsatisfactory service record of the petitioner’s father can suddenly be weaponised as a ground for the outright rejection of a compassionate appointment claim,” the court said on April 24.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court ordered Rs 50,000 in compensation for the petitioner for the unwarranted harassment and immense hardship inflicted upon the impoverished petitioner.
While taking a strong exception to the glaringly apathetic approach by the respondent authorities, the order noted that the rejection is demonstrably arbitrary, legally perverse, and entirely against the established statutory law of compassionate appointment.
Tragic death of father and son’s legal battle for his right
The petitioner approached the Madhya Pradesh High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, seeking its invocation of the extraordinary jurisdiction. The petitioner was challenging the Union Bank of India 2018 order that declined the petitioner for the grant of compassionate appointment following the untimely demise of his father.
The petitioner pleaded in the Madhya Pradesh High Court for the issuance of certiorari to effectively quash the Union Bank of India order dated January 30, 2018. He also sought a writ of mandamus commanding the respondents to post a peon/messenger in the sub-staff cadre.
The petitioner claimed in the Madhya Pradesh High Court that this appointment from the retrospective date of the death of his deceased father, i.e., August 7, 2016, along with all the consequential and monetary benefits arising thereof.
His father was a regular employee of the respondent bank. He was serving on the substantive post of ‘daftary’ at the Sagra Branch in District Rewa, Madhya Pradesh. He completed 22 years and four months of continuous and uninterrupted service in the bank before he tragically passed away in August 2016 due to a massive and sudden heart attack while in harness.
The petitioner is the only son and a completely dependent, unemployed youth of 20 years of age. His mother had already passed away earlier in the year 2012, leaving the entire family effectively orphaned upon the father’s sudden demise.
The principal contention of the petitioner is that the respondents have arbitrarily and unlawfully refused the appointment on the completely false plea of an “unsatisfactory service record” of his late father.