17.08.2026 22 sdas WPA 3019 of 2025 Rupali Duley Vs. West Bengal Gramin Bank & Ors. Mr. Indranath Mitra .….. for the petitioner Mr. Baidurya Ghosal Mr. Saikat Mukherjee ….. for the respondent Bank 1. Let affidavit-of-service, as filed in Court, be kept on record. 2. The petitioner is aggrieved that her application for compassionate appointment has been rejected by the authority on the ground that her father, the deceased employee, was above the age of 55 years and hence she is not entitled to be considered for compassionate appointment. 3. The scheme for appointment on compassionate ground on April 18, 2019, specifies coverage to: “For the purpose of the Scheme “employee” would mean and include only a confirmed regular employee who was serving full time or part-time on scale wages, at the time of death/retirement on medical grounds, before reaching age of 55 years and does not include any one engaged on contract/temporary/casual or any person who is paid on commission basis” 4. Mr. Ghosal, learned Advocate appearing for the respondents, submits that in terms of this aforestated scheme, the petitioner is not covered as the petitioner’s father was above the stipulated age of 55 2 years. However, at the same time he submits that there was a discrepancy in the age of the employee at the time of his death. The same seems to be supported by the fact that the respondent Bank, presently amalgamated into the respondent no. 1 had, by its letter dated March 31, 2023 sought for particulars to ascertain the age of the petitioner’s father. The said ascertainment remained unfulfilled, thereby leading the authorities to proceed on the available records and hold that the petitioner’s father was above the age of 55 years on the date of his death, thereby disqualifying the petitioner to be considered for compassionate appointment. 5. Since the decision was taken in view of the discrepancies which the authority pointed out by a letter dated May 25/26, 2023, clearly the actual age of the petitioner’s father remained unascertained, thereby making such unascertained age a parameter and the sole ground for rejection of the petitioner’s application. 6. Beneficial legislation such as compassionate appointment should be treated with a bit more sympathy and concern. Thus, it would be appropriate to direct the authority to give a hearing to the petitioner with adequate prior notice and an opportunity to present all available documents to establish the exact age of the petitioner’s father, as on the date of his death. 3 7. I direct the respondent no. 6 to give the petitioner a hearing with adequate prior notice and also with an opportunity to disclose the requisite documents to establish her father’s age on the date of his death. 8. The entire exercise will culminate into a reasoned and speaking order by the concerned authority. 9. Let the entire exercise be completed within a period of eight weeks from the date of service of a copy of this order. 10. The resultant order will be communicated to the petitioner within one week thereafter. 11. The concerned authority will be at liberty to reconsider afresh the issues which have already been decided by it. The authority will also be at liberty to appropriately modify the order of rejection dated December 9, 2024, if the petitioner is found to be otherwise eligible. 12. With the aforestated directions, the writ petition is disposed of. 13. There will be no order as to costs. 14. All parties shall act on the serve copy of this order, duly downloaded from the official website of this Court. (Reetobroto Kumar Mitra, J.)