The Karnataka High Court at Dharwad has directed the North Western Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NWKRTC) to reconsider the application of a 47-year-old widow, whose plea for a compassionate job was earlier rejected on age grounds. Justice M. Nagaprasanna, while pronouncing the order on 14 October 2025, emphasized that such schemes must be applied with “a humane perspective rather than mechanical rigidity.”
Background
The petitioner, Saroja w/o Ganeshrao N. Kondai, lost her husband, a driver-cum-conductor employed with NWKRTC, on 27 September 2023. Soon after his death, she applied for a compassionate appointment—a benefit extended to dependents of employees who die in service to relieve financial distress.
However, the Corporation declined her request, citing that she had become a widow after crossing the maximum eligible age of 43 years set under its compassionate appointment scheme. The rejection came through two endorsements dated 17 January 2025 and 10 May 2025, both maintaining that her age-47 years, 2 months, and 24 days-disqualified her.
Saroja, who claimed to be facing dire financial hardship after her husband’s death, challenged these orders before the High Court, arguing that the purpose of the compassionate scheme was being defeated by such rigid application of age limits.
Court's Observations
Justice Nagaprasanna noted that the purpose of compassionate appointment is to mitigate the financial crisis of the deceased employee’s family, not to provide an alternate form of recruitment. He pointed out that insisting on an inflexible age limit “makes the scheme lose its very soul.”
The Court referred to an earlier decision by a coordinate bench in W.P. No. 102208 of 2025, where a similar rejection based on age had been overturned. That bench had observed,
“A strict implementation of the upper age limit would only cause injustice and would not serve the cause of social justice that the State must uphold.”
Justice Nagaprasanna said he was in “respectful agreement” with that reasoning and chose to expand on it. Citing the Supreme Court’s ruling in Canara Bank vs. Ajith Kumar G.K. (2025 SCC OnLine SC 290), the Court reiterated that no eligible dependent should be turned away merely because of age if the family’s financial situation is genuinely distressing.
“The Apex Court has clarified,” the bench remarked, “that no dependent who satisfies the core criteria should be told off at the gate only because of age bar. Compassion, not calculation, should guide such decisions.”
The judge further observed that NWKRTC had failed to make any inquiry into the actual financial condition of the widow’s family before rejecting her application a step that the Supreme Court had mandated as essential in such cases. The Court stressed that compassionate employment must respond to real-life hardship, not paperwork formalities.
Decision
Allowing the petition partly, the Court quashed both endorsements dated 17 January and 10 May 2025 and directed the NWKRTC to reconsider Saroja’s application within eight weeks of receiving the order.
Justice Nagaprasanna concluded,
“The Corporation must now look at her plea not through the prism of numbers, but through the lens of human dignity.”
The order stops short of directing an appointment outright but places a clear obligation on the transport corporation to re-evaluate the widow’s case in light of humanitarian considerations and the evolving judicial stance on such matters.
With this ruling, the Karnataka High Court once again nudged public employers to balance procedural limits with empathy, ensuring that schemes meant for relief are not turned into tools of exclusion.
Case Title: Saroja Kondai AND Managing Director & Others
Case Type & Number: Writ Petition No. 106296 of 2025
Date of Decision: 14 October 2025