No rationale behind exclusion of married daughters from compassionate appointment scheme: Tripura High Court

The Tripura High Court on Tuesday held the State government's exclusion of married daughters from compassionate appointments under the die-in-harness scheme had no rationale and struck down a government notification that excluded married daughters from such appointments [State of Tripura vs Debashri Chakraborty and ors.]..A Bench of Chief Justice Indrajity Mahanty and SG Chattopadhyay noted that the objective of the die-in-harness scheme is to provide urgent relief after the death of an earning family. "Marriage does not break the bond between a daughter and her parents as it does not do between a son and his parents. A crisis in the family of her parents equally worries a married daughter. As such, there is no rationale behind exclusion of a married daughter from the scheme," the Bench observed. The Court thus upheld a single-Judge's judgment that had ruled that Tripura government's exclusion of married daughters from compassionate appointments, was unconstitutional."A die-in-harness policy inasmuch as it operates as a disqualification in the case of a married woman, as against a married man must be held to be discriminatory and such policy, tested on the touchstone of Articles 14 to 16 of the Constitution, cannot be held to be valid," the Division Bench held..The Bench was hearing an appeal by the State against a single-Judge order of the High Court that held a May 2017 notification by the Tripura government as unconstitutional. The text of the the said notification read:“Married daughter(s) under any circumstances shall not come under the purview of die-in-harness scheme.”The scheme provides either employment to an eligible dependent family member of a deceased government servant, or financial assistance. The respondents in the present case, four different parties, were denied the former on grounds of being married daughters, who were explicitly excluded from the scheme by the notification.The counsel for the State argued that the scheme does not include a married daughter because under no circumstances can they be treated as a dependent family member of a deceased government employee. The beneficiaries of such schemes are a matter of policy and no aspirant claim a statutory right to the same, it was submitted. The counsel for the petitioners said that complete exclusion of married daughters from the purview of compassionate appointment under the die-in-harness scheme is an impermissible discrimination and violative of Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution..The Bench in the instant case noted how different High Courts have unanimously viewed that complete exclusion of married daughters from the purview of such schemes is "unreasonable, arbitrary and violative of the equality clauses of the Constitution", as provided by Articles 14 to 16."Numerous situations can be contemplated where there may be none other than the married daughter to support the family of the deceased government servant," the Court observed. The Court heard the four different appeals together, and rejected the same.The appellant State authorities were directed to consider the applications for compassionate appointment received from the respondents afresh, and dispose of the same on merits within three months. .Government Adovcate D Bhattacharya, Additional Government Adovcate M Debbarma and advocate Soumyadeep Saha appeared for the appellants. Senior Advocates P Roy Barman and Somik Deb, and advocates HK Bhowmik, Samarjit Bhattacharjee, K Nath and R Chakraborty appeared for the respondents. .[Read Judgment]