As a major judicial setback to the Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay-led TVK government, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has quashed the Tamil Nadu government’s orders granting government jobs on compassionate grounds to the families of the 41 people who died in the Karur stampede during a TVK rally on September 27, 2025. Holding that the appointments violated the constitutional principles of equality and equal opportunity in public employment, the court struck down the government orders approving the appointments.
A Division Bench of Justices C. V. Karthikeyan and R. Sakthivel held that the State’s order granting jobs to the families of the 41 victims was contrary to Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution, which guarantee equality before law and equal opportunity in public employment.
Before and after the government’s action, there was stiff opposition, with critics arguing that “it was a political decision to give jobs to those who attended a TVK rally and had nothing to do with the policy on compassionate appointments. Would it give jobs to those who died in the Sterlite police firing, the families of those who lost their breadwinners in the Coimbatore serial bomb blasts, over 200 karyakartas of Hindutva outfits, people who died during the Vanniar protests, Maha Maham victims, or the Kumbakonam school fire mishap victims?” The list continued to grow.
Early in the first week of July, the High Court allowed the distribution of appointment orders to the victims’ families, but only on the condition that they would remain subject to judicial review.
At the time, the judges had described judicial interference in a policy decision as “extremely narrow”, while insisting that the appointments would remain provisional until the legal challenge was decided before the recipients drew their first salary.
On July 10, Joseph Vijay, on his maiden visit to Karur after assuming office, handed over government appointment orders on compassionate grounds to 32 members of the victims’ families. Under the scheme, one eligible member from each affected family was offered a government job.
On July 27, 2026, after hearing the State’s defence and the petitioners’ objections, the court concluded that the appointments could not survive constitutional scrutiny.
The court observed that there are many who wait for employment, holding that public jobs “are not to be thrown away by the State” but must be earned through the constitutional framework governing recruitment.
The Bench said the State had relied on its executive powers under Article 162 of the Constitution to justify the appointments. However, it emphasised that executive authority could not be exercised beyond constitutional limits, observing that “if executive action were to be left unfettered and given a free hand, chaos will reign”.
The court stated that compassionate appointments are already governed by established rules and waiting lists across government departments for the families of government employees who die in service.
It said extending the benefit outside that framework would unfairly overlook those already awaiting consideration under the existing scheme.
It also warned that permitting such appointments in the Karur case would inevitably open the door to similar demands following other tragedies, including industrial accidents, fireworks explosions and motor accidents, where victims had received ex gratia compensation but not government employment.
The court asked: “We wonder why the government could not have extended training in skills and entrepreneurship for deserving members of these families. The government would be creating leaders, entrepreneurs and self-sufficient individuals in each family who can later provide employment to others. The government can bear the expense of such technical courses.”
In September 2025, 41 people were killed in the Karur stampede during a TVK rally. A CBI probe has been ongoing. Actor-turned-politician Joseph Vijay was questioned twice before he became Chief Minister.
Madurai lawyer Theeran Thirumurugan filed a PIL challenging the validity of the Government Order issued by the newly elected TVK government.
Advocate N. Prabhakaran of Chennai also filed a PIL contending that the families had already received ₹10 lakh as government compensation and an additional ₹20 lakh. The Principal Bench in Chennai declined to entertain his PIL on July 17–18, 2026, noting that it had become redundant because a similar batch of cases was already being actively heard by the Madras High Court, Madurai Bench.
