Court order on compassionate appointments

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has cancelled the Tamil Nadu government’s compassionate job appointments issued to families of people who died in the Karur campaign meeting stampede. The Bench also observed that the State could have supported affected families through skill-development training, which it said may be more useful than providing jobs.

Petitions questioned “selective” relief

The case arose from public interest petitions filed by Madurai-based Naam Tamilar Katchi functionary Dheeran Thirumurugan, along with similar petitions by Manithaneya Jananayaga Katchi state deputy secretary Seeni Ahmed and Vadamadurai resident Santhosh Kumar. The petitioners pointed to the Karur incident on September 27, 2025, in which 41 people died in a crowd crush during a campaign event attended by TVK leader Vijay.

Probe under Supreme Court monitoring

The petitions noted that the Supreme Court had ordered the investigation to be transferred to the CBI and that the probe is continuing under the Supreme Court’s supervision. They argued that granting government jobs only for this incident—when similar relief was not extended in past tragedies such as crowd incidents, fires and road accidents—could be contrary to law and may set a precedent for future demands.

Government’s stand and earlier interim direction

The State, through the Revenue Department, said it took a policy decision to provide compassionate appointments to ease the hardship of families. Government orders dated July 6 and July 9 proposed jobs for 31 people—24 from Karur, one from Salem, and two each from Tiruppur, Erode and Dindigul—on a temporary basis, to be later regularised in departments such as Revenue and Rural Development and Panchayat Raj based on educational qualifications.

Bench heard the matter

A Division Bench of Justices C.V. Karthikeyan and R. Sakthivel heard the matter. Earlier, on July 10, the court had allowed the appointment event to be held but said the jobs would be subject to the court’s final orders and sought a report on guidelines governing compassionate appointments and their applicability to the Karur case.