Assam Govt Issues New SOP to Streamline the Process of Compassionate Appointments

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: The Assam Government has introduced a new Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to streamline the process of compassionate appointments, ensuring uniformity and timely disposal of applications.

The move follows a series of judicial pronouncements, including an order of the Gauhati High Court issued on April 3, 2025, in a WP(C) (342/2025).

The Department of Personnel (Personnel-A), through an executive order, has laid down a structured framework for handling such cases. The SOP also seeks to resolve issues arising from challenges to the earlier Office Memorandum issued on September 18, 2024, that had superseded the Family Pension-cum-Compassionate Family Pension Scheme.

The SOP incorporates guidelines and rulings of the Supreme Court and the Gauhati High Court on compassionate appointments.

It also has mentioned that district-level committees (DLCs) and the state-level committee (SLC) must dispose of cases within one month of receiving proposals from the Personnel Department.

According to the SOP, applications already rejected can only be reopened if set aside by a court or challenged before April 4, 2025, unless specific court orders exist. DLCs, district commissioners, and the SLC are required to maintain registers of all disposed cases.

On consideration parameters, authorities must assess applications based on the financial crisis of the bereaved family, the welfare intent of the scheme, and the principle that cases pending beyond two years due to lack of vacancies will lapse.

According to the SOP, while deciding the case for compassionate appointment, the competent authority shall take a decision based on guidelines of the State Government and judgements passed by the Supreme Court and the Gauhati High Court on criteria and parameters on the basis of which each individual case is to be dealt with:

(i) The criterion of ‘immediacy’ in determining the claims for compassionate appointment to fulfil the object-being to enable the family of the deceased employee to get over the immediate financial crisis which it faces at the time of death of the sole breadwinner of the family.

(ii) Compassionate appointment cannot be claimed and offered after the lapse of a considerable amount of time and after the crisis is over, and the Gauhati High Court specifically directed in the case of Achyut Ranjan Das vs SOA & Ors, reported in 2006(4) GLT 674, that the applications of eligible candidates which remain pending and cannot be considered due to a lack of vacancies for a period of two years from the date of making such applications, all such applications will require no further consideration and must be understood to have spent their force.

(iii) The compassionate appointment is not a right; rather, it is a welfare measure from the State Government to the family of the deceased employees for its immediate succour. The conditions set for granting the benefit of such a measure, being an exception to the general rules for recruitment, have to be strictly adhered to.

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