On July 27, the Tamil Nadu government approached the Supreme Court to challenge the Madras High Court’s decision to quash compassionate appointments for the families of those who died in the September 2025 Karur stampede. The government has filed a Special Leave Petition against the Madurai Bench’s judgment, which deemed the appointments unconstitutional. The Madras High Court’s ruling, delivered by a Division Bench of Justice C.V. Karthikeyan and Justice R. Sakthivel, stated that compassionate appointments cannot be granted through executive discretion in a way that bypasses constitutional guarantees of equality and equal opportunity in public employment. The court observed that such appointments are meant to provide immediate financial relief to the family of a deceased government employee, not as a general rehabilitation measure following a public tragedy. The Tamil Nadu government’s decision to offer compassionate appointments to the families of stampede victims was deemed inconsistent with settled legal principles. The Supreme Court will now examine the government’s SLP, which challenges the High Court’s ruling that invalidated the appointments. The Madras High Court had noted that the state government exceeded its executive authority under Article 162 of the Constitution, and that executive power must always be subject to the guarantees contained in Articles 14 and 16. The court also stated that extending compassionate appointments to the families of stampede victims would unfairly place them ahead of thousands of eligible applicants awaiting such appointments under the existing policy.
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📰 Source: Mangalorean News