Madras High Court relief for married daughters

Chennai: In a major relief to the married daughters, the Madras HC has reiterated that the government cannot deny compassionate appointment to the daughter of the deceased government servant on the ground of marriage.

Allowing a petition from V. Rajalakshmi, Justice D. Hariparanthaman directed the Virudhunagar district collector to provide compassionate appointment to her within eight weeks, without reference to marriage.

The father of the petitioner was working as a revenue assistant in the office of the excise officer, Sivakasi division, Virudhunagar. He died on June 1, 2009 while in service, leaving his wife, son and daughter as legal heirs.

The petitioner got married prior to the death of her father on February 3, 2006. 

After getting NOC from the other legal heirs, when she submitted an application for compassionate appointment, the same was declined by the collector on the sole ground that she got married prior to the death of her father. Therefore, she filed the present petition.

Quashing the order, denying compassionate appointment to the petitioner, the judge cited his earlier order and said, “From the said judgment, it is clear that this court held in categorical terms that the government cannot deny compassionate appointment to the daughter of the deceased government servants on the ground of marriage and quashed the government orders denying compassionate appointment to the married daughters”.

In his earlier order, the judge had wiped out totally, the discrimination meted out to married daughters in the matter of providing compassionate appointment and had declared as arbitrary, illegal and unconstitutional, and quashed a government order which fixed the cut off date for providing compassionate appointment to the married daughter as November 29, 2001. As per this G.O, the daughters who got married after November 29, 2001 are alone entitled to seek compassionate appointment based on the death of her father/mother, who was a government servant.