BENGALURU: The Karnataka HC has ruled that married daughters, too, are entitled to seek employment on compassionate grounds as they don’t cease to be part of the family after they enter wedlock. “Half the world, and not even half a chance,” the court said on Tuesday about the plight of Bhuvaneswari V Puranik from Bengaluru, whose representation for a job on compassionate grounds was rejected because she is married. Her brother, working in a private company, chose not to seek a government job.
The court also directed the government to consider the petitioner’s appeal for a job in one of its departments. The petitioner’s father Ashok Adiveppa Madivalar, who worked as a secretary in the office of Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee at Kuduchi in Belagavi, died in 2016 while in service. His daughter’s application for a job on compassionate grounds in 2017 was rejected by the joint director (administration), department of agriculture marketing.
Bhuvaneswari challenged the order in HC, contending it was discriminatory. The court said married daughters’ exclusion from the ambit of expression ‘family’ under the Karnataka Civil Services (Appointment on Compassionate Grounds) Rules, 1996, was illegal, discriminatory and unconstitutional, and struck down the rules which said only an unmarried daughter is considered a member of the family. Stating that “the nature bestows so much on women (and) the law cannot bestow too little”, Justice M Nagaprasanna said the rules seek to create discrimination on the basis of gender. “If the marital status of a son does not make any difference in law to his entitlement for seeking appointment on compassionate grounds, the marital status of a daughter (too) should make no difference,” it said.