NEW DELHI: The Central Information Commission has identified serious transparency and governance gaps in the way compassionate appointments are handled in government departments, warning that opaque decision-making and poorly defined policies are leading to a steady rise in disputes, lawsuits and RTI applications across the country.
Compassionate recruitment not a right but exception: CIC flags opacity, seeks uniform policyIn an order with wider implications for public administration, the commission directed the Central GST and Central Excise Department in Lucknow to release the records of the screening committee in a sympathetic recruitment case, stressing that secrecy in such proceedings undermines accountability.
Information Commissioner Vinod Kumar Tiwari observed that once a department admits that a case has been examined by a departmental screening committee, the records of that exercise fall under the RTI Act.
“Once it is admitted that the appellant’s case was considered by the departmental screening committee, the records relating to such consideration, the minutes of the meeting and the merit list drawn based on the marking system, constitute ‘information’ under Section 2 of the RTI Act,” the commission said.
The CIC said departments cannot fulfill the obligation of transparency by giving vague answers. “Merely stating that the appellant was considered and not recommended, without disclosing the relevant records, particularly the merit-list, does not fully satisfy the mandate of transparency under the RTI Act,” it added.
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The Commission noted that compassionate recruitment, intended as an exception to the normal recruitment process, has increasingly become a source of controversy due to lack of clear criteria, inconsistent evaluation and non-disclosure of records.
This opacity, it said, “prevents applicants from understanding the decision-making process” and undermines trust in public institutions.
While acknowledging concerns about third-party personal information, the CIC stressed that appointments to public office through concessional channels must withstand public scrutiny. It noted that “even for jobs offered in a fair and transparent competitive examination, publication of category-wise merit lists has been upheld” by the Court, reinforcing the principle that transparency cannot be curtailed merely because a recruitment is compassionate in nature.
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The Commission directed to furnish certified copies of the minutes of the meeting of the DSC, limited to the applicant, along with the merit list drawn on the marks awarded for various parameters, within three weeks.
Taking a broader national view, the CIC also cautioned against what it described as “a general perception among applicants that compassionate recruitment is a matter of right”.
“Compassionate recruitment is not a vested right but an exception to the normal recruitment process,” the commission said, adding that it is only intended to provide “immediate relief to the family of a deceased employee left in destitute conditions”.
The order highlighted that the absence of “clear and unambiguous” policies governing compassionate appointments often led to “avoidable complaints, long-winded correspondence and multiple RTI applications seeking clarification rather than specific records”.
Invoking his advisory powers under Section 25 of the RTI Act, Tiwari asked departments to learn from best practices elsewhere to review and revise their compassionate recruitment policies. He cited the Himachal Pradesh government’s policy that it follows a structured, point-based assessment as a model that “balances fairness, transparency and compassion with administrative discipline”.
The commission said clear rules and proactive disclosure would strengthen overall governance, reduce discretionary decision-making and significantly reduce RTI-driven disputes in compassionate recruitment.
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