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2015 DIGILAW 886 (GAU)

Sk. Ali Hussain v. State of Assam

2015-07-22

T.VAIPHEI

body2015
JUDGMENT : Having heard Mr. N.H. Barbhuiya, the learned counsel for the petitioner, Mr. R. Mazumdar, the learned Standing Counsel for the Elementary Education Department, Assam, and Ms. R. Chakraborty, the learned Government Advocate, at some length, I am of the view that there is no merit in this writ petition, which is liable to be dismissed at the very threshold. 2. What happens in this case is that the father of the petitioner, namely, the late Sk. Anor Ali died on 12-1-2010 when he was serving as Grade-IV employee of Hilal Uddin Memorial ME School, Hailakandi. He left behind the petitioner and other family members. According to the petitioner, due to the sudden demise of the sole bread earner in the family, he, to eke out a living, submitted an application in the prescribed form to the District Elementary Education Officer, Hailakandi (respondent 4) on 15-3-2010 vide Annexure-C. His application was, however, not immediately taken up by the respondent authorities whereupon he was compelled to file WP(C) No. 4375/2010 before this Court, which by the order dated 6-8-2010 disposed of the writ petition at the motion stage by directing the respondent No.4 to place his application before the District Level Committee (respondent 3) for consideration. His application was apparently never placed before the respondent No.3 by the respondent No.4 for all these years. As already noticed, this Court had passed a direction in that writ petition upon the respondent No.4 on 6-8-2010 to place the application of the petitioner before the respondent No.3 as early as possible. The petitioner apparently fell into deep slumber and, like Rip Van Winkle, chose to approach this Court almost five years after the first round of his litigation. What was he doing all these years? No satisfactory explanation is given by him except to say that he had approached the authorities on several occasions. Repeated representations do not extend the cause of action. The object of providing appointment on compassionate ground is to mitigate the hardship caused due to the sudden demise of the sole bread earner of the deceased family. It should not be forgotten that as against the destitute family of the deceased, there are millions and millions of other families who are equally, if not more, destitute. The object of providing appointment on compassionate ground is to mitigate the hardship caused due to the sudden demise of the sole bread earner of the deceased family. It should not be forgotten that as against the destitute family of the deceased, there are millions and millions of other families who are equally, if not more, destitute. After waiting for three months or so for compliance with the direction of this Court in WP(C) No. 4375/2010 by the respondents, if his case was still not considered, the petitioner should have approached this Court by filing a contempt petition, but he did not do so. Instead, he chose to file this writ petition after almost five years. The writ petition, therefore, suffers from the vice of laches. In this view of the matter, the DLC cannot be faulted with for rejecting his application as “old case & spent its force”. 3. For what has been stated in the foregoing, this writ petition is not maintainable on the ground of latches, and is, therefore, dismissed. The parties are, however, directed to bear their own costs.