Court No. - 18
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 39222 of 2014
Petitioner :- Manju Kureel
Respondent :- State Of U.P.And 3 Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- Virendra Pratap Pal,R.C.Dwivedi
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
Hon'ble Rohit Ranjan Agarwal,J.
Heard Sri R.C. Dwivedi, learned counsel for petitioner, learned Standing Counsel for respondent no. 1 and Sri Akhilesh Chandra Srivastava, learned counsel for respondent nos. 2, 3 and 4.
Petitioner has filed this writ petition assailing the order dated 20.05.2014 passed by respondent no. 3 rejecting the claim of petitioner for compassionate appointment. Father of petitioner, Late Ram Kumar Kuril was a Class IV employee in an Institution run by Basic Shiksha Parishad. Due to his unfortunate death on 03.08.2009, petitioner who is a divorced daughter has claimed for compassionate appointment.
Petitioner who was married, due to matrimonial dispute, started living separately from her husband since 2004 and finally a divorce decree was passed on 27.04.2011 after the death of her father. Her claim has been rejected by respondent no. 3 as she was not within the definition of unmarried daughters entitled for any compassionate appointment. Sri Dwivedi has relied upon a Division Bench judgment of this Court in case of State of U.P. vs. Noopur Srivastava, 2019 (2) ADJ 588 (DB) (LB), wherein this Court held as under:
"24. On the basis of aforesaid discussion in the context of Rules of 1974, we hold that the expression "divorced daughter" is included/implicit in the expression "Unmarried daughter". Accordingly we hold that a "divorced daughter" is entitled to compassionate appointment if she was dependant, on the date of death of her father/mother (the employee) and the marriage was dissolved legally either prior to or after the date of death of bread earner of the family and she remains "not married" at the time of appointment."
Learned counsel appearing for the respondent Parishad submitted that as the divorce decree was passed on 27.04.2011 and father of petitioner passed away in year 2009, as such petitioner was not a divorcee at the time of death of her father and was not entitled in view of Rules of 1974.
I have heard counsel for the parties and scanned the material on record.
It is not disputed that the petitioner is living separately since 2004 from her husband and only divorce decree was passed on 27.04.2011. This Court in the case of Noopur Srivastava (supra) had held that a divorced daughter is also entitled to compassionate appointment as the expression "divorced daughter" included "unmarried daughter". As respondent no. 3 has not recorded any finding to this fact, the order dated 20.05.2014 passed by respondent no. 3 is unsustainable and is hereby quashed.
The matter is remitted to respondent no. 3 to decide the claim of petitioner afresh keeping in view the judgment of this Court in case of Noopur Srivastava (supra) within a period of three months from the date of production of certified copy of this order.
With the aforesaid observation, the writ petition stands partly allowed.
Order Date :- 20.12.2019 V.S.Singh