Orissa high court awards Rs 5 lakh compensation for 20-year job appointment delay

Cuttack: Orissa high court has awarded Rs 5 lakh compensation to a job-seeker who was denied appointment for over two decades despite a tribunal order in his favour.

A division bench of Justices Dixit Krishna Shripad and Chittaranjan Dash, in an order dated Jan 20 and uploaded on Jan 28, partly allowed a writ petition filed by Sudhansu Nanda, who had challenged the State Administrative Tribunal’s 2017 decision dropping contempt proceedings initiated in 2003.


The contempt case stemmed from non-compliance with the tribunal’s order dated Sept 5, 2002, which had allowed Nanda’s petition relating to appointment as a driver under the office of the chief district medical officer, Sambalpur. The state contended that the 2002 order was merely recommendatory and unenforceable. The HC rejected the argument. “We fail to understand as to how the tribunal could have dismissed the contempt plea and thereby dropped the contempt proceeding” when the order dated Sept 5, 2002, “was not complied with in letter & spirit”, the court observed.

The court noted that Nanda was selected for the post in 1999 and issued an appointment letter, but was never accommodated, forcing him to approach the tribunal. Although contempt proceedings were initiated in 2003, they remained pending for over 14 years. “It bewilders any sensible mind that a contempt proceeding would linger on for such a long period.” the court said.

The bench further held that the petitioner’s right to appointment had crystallised and that denial caused “wrong coupled with damage”. Emphasising that courts cannot leave a successful litigant remediless, it held that secondary relief must be granted where primary relief becomes impractical.

Accordingly, the court directed the state to pay Rs 5 lakh within six weeks, failing which an additional Rs 500 per day would be levied, recoverable from erring officials. The relief was granted “in lieu of direction for appointment” in view of the state’s pleaded administrative difficulties.

“The litigants come to court/tribunal not for just getting some order howsoever they are texted… No court can say that its order is unenforceable,” the bench said. Criticising ambiguous drafting, it added, “If language is not properly employed, then what is said, is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what needs to be done would remain undone or is misdone.”