Source:https://orissatodaynews.in/epaper/edition/1965/orissa-today-daily-english-newspaper/page/4
Justice cannot be denied for administrative delay
-Bruhaspati Samal-
Compassionate appointment is not an ordinary route to government employment; it is a lifeline extended by the State to a family suddenly pushed into uncertainty and distress. When the sole earning member of a family dies in harness or becomes permanently incapacitated, the family does not merely lose an employee, it loses its source of livelihood, security and hope for the future. At such a moment, compassionate appointment is intended to provide not privilege, but relief; not favour, but rehabilitation; not charity, but a measure of social justice. For many such families, the application for compassionate appointment is submitted with the hope that the State will stand beside them during their darkest hour. They wait patiently while their cases pass through scrutiny, verification, committee consideration, availability of posts and other administrative formalities. The applicant has no control over how long these processes may take. Yet, when the appointment order finally arrives after the pension cut-off date, the same family may suddenly discover that the consequences of administrative delay will follow the appointee throughout his or her entire working life and into retirement. A delay in extending a helping hand should never become a lifelong punishment for the person who waited for that hand. If the applicant had approached the Government within the prescribed period and before the introduction of the National Pension System (NPS), it would be deeply inequitable to allow the subsequent administrative delay to deprive that person of the pension protection that existed when the claim was made. This is where compassion must meet justice, and where administrative rules must be interpreted with a human face.
The introduction of the NPS fundamentally altered the retirement security of government employees. But what happens when an employee had already entered the process of government appointment before the NPS cut-off date, and yet received the appointment order after that date solely because the administration took time to complete its own procedures? This is not merely a technical pension issue; it is an issue of justice, equity and protection of employees from consequences arising out of administrative delay. The Government of Odisha introduced NPS with effect from 1 January 2005. Consequently, employees appointed on or after that date were generally brought under the new pension regime. However, a special and deserving category requires immediate attention—those compassionate appointment applicants who had submitted their applications on or before 31 December 2004, but whose appointments were made only after 1 January 2005 because their cases remained under administrative processing.
These applicants had already approached the Government before the introduction of NPS. They had invoked the provisions of the Odisha Civil Services (Rehabilitation Assistance) Rules, 1990, at a time when the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) continued to operate. They did everything that was required of them. The subsequent delay in scrutiny, verification, availability of posts, approval and issuance of appointment orders was entirely within the administrative domain. Why should an employee suffer a lifelong pensionary disadvantage for a delay that was never within his or her control? This question has acquired renewed significance following the decision of the Department of Pension & Pensioners' Welfare (DoPPW), Government of India, through O.M. No. 57/05/2021-P&PW(B)/Compassionate/10593 dated 22 June 2026. The Union Government has recognised the peculiar hardship of compassionate appointees whose applications were made before the introduction of NPS but whose appointments took place subsequently for reasons beyond their control.
The principle underlying this decision is both simple and profound: where an applicant had already submitted an application for compassionate appointment before the pension cut-off date, the mere fact that the appointment order was issued later should not, in appropriate cases, automatically deprive the person of the pension protection applicable when the claim was originally made. Odisha now faces a compelling question: Will the State Government extend the same principle of justice to similarly situated employees in Odisha? The factual framework is remarkably similar. The Union Government introduced NPS from 1 January 2004, while Odisha introduced it from 1 January 2005. Therefore, where a compassionate appointment application was submitted on or before 31 December 2004 and appointment followed after 1 January 2005 solely because of administrative processing, the State Government can examine such cases on the same principle, subject of course to the prescribed conditions and verification.
This demand should not be viewed as a demand for an undue concession. Nor is it a demand to retrospectively alter the date of appointment. It is a demand that an employee should not be penalised for an administrative delay. Compassionate appointment is itself an exceptional humanitarian mechanism. It exists because a government employee's family has suffered the death or permanent incapacitation of its earning member and has consequently fallen into financial distress. Such families often wait for months or years while their cases move through different levels of administration. To subsequently tell a compassionate appointee that the delay in appointment has permanently placed him or her under a less favourable pension regime would appear fundamentally inconsistent with the humanitarian purpose of the scheme.
The issue also raises the broader principle of legitimate expectation and administrative fairness. When a citizen approaches the State within the prescribed period and fulfills the requirements applicable at that time, the State must ensure that its own procedural delay does not become a source of irreversible prejudice. The Government of Odisha therefore has an opportunity to demonstrate that good governance means not merely applying rules mechanically, but applying them with justice, equity and compassion. A State-wide policy or appropriate Government order should be issued without further delay, laying down clear eligibility criteria for compassionate appointees who submitted their applications on or before 31 December 2004, were otherwise eligible for consideration under the Rehabilitation Assistance Rules, were appointed after 1 January 2005, and suffered the change in pension coverage solely because their appointment was delayed for administrative or procedural reasons beyond their control.
Each case can be scrutinised individually against the prescribed conditions. Genuine cases can then be shifted from NPS to the applicable OPS framework, with consequential adjustments in pension records, contributions and other benefits in accordance with the rules. Justice delayed in appointment should not become injustice multiplied in retirement. Thousands of employees and their families may be anxiously awaiting such a policy decision. For them, pension is not merely an accounting entry or a fiscal liability. It represents social security earned through years of public service and the assurance of dignity in old age.
The Union Government has shown the way. Odisha need not reinvent the wheel. It can examine the Central Government's decision, identify the corresponding category in the State, prescribe appropriate safeguards and issue a reasoned order. What is required now is not another round of representations and correspondence, but a clear, compassionate and time-bound policy decision. The Government of Odisha should therefore act immediately and extend justice to all genuinely eligible compassionate appointees who had applied before the introduction of NPS but were appointed later due to administrative delay.
The date of appointment may have been delayed by the State machinery. Their right to justice must not be delayed any further. Let Odisha follow the principle of the Union Government—and ensure that no employee pays a lifelong pensionary price for an administrative delay that was never his or her fault.
(The author is a Service Union Representative and a Columnist, presently working as the General Secretary, Confederation of Central Govt Employees and Workers and President, Forum of Civil Pensioners' Association / National Coordination Committee of Pensioners' Association, Odisha State Committee)
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