Orissa High Court News: Terming the government’s approach as bureaucratic and from the “colonial era”, the Orissa High Court recently quoted famous English author George Orwell to allow the wife of a disabled CRPF man to be appointed as a head constable on compassionate grounds.

A division bench of Justices Krishna Shripad Dixit and Chittaranjan Dash was hearing a plea of a state against the single judge order of compassionate appointment as a head constable after the husband CRPF man suffered acute physical disability in a bomb blast engineered by terrorists in Srinagar.

Justice Dixit, who authored the verdict, quoted famous English novelist and critic George Orwell’s lines as saying, “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to suffer violence on their behalf.”

Highlighting that the unfortunate couple has been fighting the legal battle one after another, the court said that in these tough times, when blood is cheaper than bread, they have been put to untold hardship all these years.

“The approach of the government is akin to the bureaucratic approach of the colonial era, long gone by after the advent of the Constitution,” the court observed

The order added that a society that does not hold the defence personnel in high esteem will do a disservice to itself, since its own security will be at stake if those who guard it are not regarded,” the court observed.

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