Lucknow, Nov. 7 -- The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has held that when a deceased government servant's wife has predeceased him, his unmarried dependent brother cannot be denied compassionate appointment merely because the deceased was once married. The court said the exclusion of an unmarried dependent brother from the definition of 'family' under Rule 2(c)(iv) of the UP Recruitment of Dependents of Government Servants Dying in Harness Rules, 1974 would not apply when the deceased government servant's wife had predeceased him. For context, as per Rule 2(c)(iv) of 1974 Rules, an unmarried brother is included within the definition of 'family' only if the deceased government servant was unmarried, otherwise, he is excluded. Justice Manish Mathur passed the judgment recently while allowing a petition filed by Devendra Pratap Singh seeking compassionate appointment. The court observed that Rules of 1974 are beneficial in nature and must be interpreted with a liberal and purpose-oriented approach to ensure that the object of providing relief to the family of a deceased government servant is not defeated. In the present case, the petitioner's elder brother Mahendra Pratap, a government employee, died in harness on October 9, 2015. His wife had predeceased him on February 12, 2010. The petitioner, claiming to be dependent on his brother who was the sole breadwinner, sought compassionate appointment. However, his claim was rejected by the authorities on the ground that as per the applicable rules, since the deceased was married, the petitioner is clearly debarred from entitlement Rejecting this reasoning, the court clarified that the primary purpose of Rules of 1974 are beneficial in nature and they provide primary right to claim such compassionate appointment has been conferred upon the spouse. However, the bench added, where the spouse of the deceased employee is no longer alive, that rationale would have no relevance. ".the said purpose of inclusion of clause 4 to Rule 2 (c) of Rules 1974 would not be applicable in those cases where the wife of deceased has predeceased him since no purpose would be served for such exclusion where the spouse of deceased employee himself is unavailable," the court observed. Consequently, the court held that the rejection of the petitioner's claim on that ground is unsustainable and thus, it quashed the impugned order dated May 25, 2016 through which, the petitioners' application for compassionate appointment was rejected. The bench directed the assistant controller, Vidhik Maap Vigyan, Faizabad Range, to reconsider the petitioner's application if he could substantiate dependency on his deceased brother....