: The Delhi High Court pulled up the Railways for eight-year delay in providing a job to the son of a victim of the 2007 Samjhauta Express blast.
A Division Bench of Justice Kailash Gambhir and Justice I.S. Mehta imposed a fine of Rs. 1 lakh on the Railways, and directed it to provide employment to the 38-year-old man within a month.
A day after the blast in the train, connecting India with Pakistan via the Attari border, near Panipat on February 18, 2007, the then Railway Minister, Lalu Prasad, had announced a compensation of Rs. 10 lakh to the next of kin of each deceased, and said the Railways would give job to one family member of each Indian killed.
The Railways refused to give a job to Faryaz as fresh face substitute on compassionate grounds, saying it could not offer employment to him as he had a wife and four children, and was not dependent on his mother, Shakina Begum, killed in the bombing.
Faryaz submitted various representations to the Northern Railway and later moved the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) on not finding any results.
Though the CAT initially directed the Railways to consider his representation, it later agreed with the July 6, 2012, decision of the Railways that his was not a fit case for offering substitute appointment.
Aggrieved by the CAT’s decision of November 11, 2014, Faryaz moved a writ petition in the High Court.
His counsel contended that his was not a case for granting employment on compassionate grounds to the ward of a Railway employee, but was a matter where he had sought employment based on an announcement made by the Railway Minister.
The Bench accepted the petitioner’s arguments while expressing surprise over the “theory of dependency” introduced by the Railways, and pointed out that the Railway Minister had nowhere suggested that the employment would be given to a dependent member of the victim satisfying the norms laid down for compassionate appointment.
The Bench set aside the CAT’s order, and said there was no reason to deny the relief to the petitioner who was given an assurance by none other than the highest functionary, the Railway Minister.
The court directed the Railways to provide employment to Faryaz in the pay band-1 with grade pay of Rs. 1,800.
