A widow of a BSF jawan has won a legal battle when the Kerala High Court held that she is entitled to compassionate appointment in the State government service.
The court made the observation while allowing a petition filed by Sheeja from Kannur, whose husband died at Udhampur. The incident took place in 1999 when his unit was camping by Tawi river at Udhampur. He drowned in the river while taking a bath. Though she filed applications for compassionate appointment, she was asked to produce a certificate from the military authority to the effect that her husband died in combat. Sheeja, however, produced a certificate from the BSF.
The court held that the government’s order that the cause of death did not come under the eligibility condition was unsustainable.
The court said that career in the Army and even the BSF was peripatetic. When a unit was on the move to carry on its operations, presumably, the personnel were on duty. Their dying, due to an accident, drowning, was incidental to the operational activities.
It was thus an accident during peacetime but directly relatable to the jawan’s discharging of his duties. For a young widow in her twenties with a two-year-old girl child, it could perhaps be an impossible task to make repeated trips to a place such Punjab or Jammu and Kashmir to obtain certificates. The court therefore directed the government to consider her application.
