18/09 2026 AD/03/18 266312 NANDY (OP) In the High Court at Calcutta Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction Appellate Side WPA/23830/2026 KOMA PARIDA & ANR. VS EASTERN COALFIELDS LIMITED & ORS. Mr. Nirmalendu Ganguly, Advocate ……for the Petitioner Ms. Arunima Lala, Advocate Mr. Arghadip Das, Advocate Mr. Pradipta Bose, Advocate ……for the Respondent 1. Affidavit of service, as filed, be kept with the record. 2. The petitioners are the family members of a deceased employee who expired sometime in October 2000, leaving the petitioners as well as other daughters and a son-in-law. The family members of the employee had not taken any steps in between the period 2000 to 2007, nor does any such step taken appear from the pleadings or the documents. 3. The first step taken was sometime in 2007 when an application was made for compassionate appointment of the son-in-law in the place and stead of the employee. Such application was kept pending for a rather long period of time and was rejected only in 2016. 4. One of the other unmarried daughters, the petitioner no. 2 herein, had applied for compassionate appointment, which was rejected on the ground that she was underage on the date of death of the employee, sometime in 2000. This rejection was effected in 2019. P a g e | 2 5. The petitioners thereafter proceeded to file an award case before the Industrial Tribunal-cum- Labour Court at Asansol, being Award Case No. 26 of 2022, which was dismissed for non- prosecution on July 28, 2026. It is only thereafter that the present writ petition has been filed. 6. The writ-petitioners do not claim for any compassionate appointment and restrict their prayers only to the grant of Monthly Monetary Cash Compensation (MMCC). 7. Since the petitioners have not made any application till date for the grant of MMCC and had applied only for compassionate appointment in 2007 and sometime after 2016, the petitioners are granted liberty to make an application for the grant of MMCC within a period of two weeks from date. 8. The authorities will consider this application in the light of the bipartite agreement applicable to the petitioners, being National Coal Wage Agreement-6. 9. If found eligible, the respondent authorities will grant MMCC to the petitioners from 2007 till date. 10. The petitioners will also be at liberty to make a prayer for interest, which will be considered by the authorities along with the application. 11. The entire exercise should be concluded within a period of eight weeks from the date of making of the application and disbursements will be made as expeditiously as possible, but should be made within a period of three weeks thereafter. P a g e | 3 12. The MMCC for the month of September shall be paid by September 30, 2026 and for the successive months by the first week of every such month. 13. With the aforesaid directions, the writ petition is disposed of. No order as to costs. (Reetobroto Kumar Mitra, J.)