LUCKNOW, April 28 -- The Lucknow bench of the Allahabbad high court has ruled that the eligibility of a "widowed daughter-in-law" for compassionate appointment must be determined with reference to the date of death of the government employee. The court held that a person who was not a member of the "family unit" at the time of the employee's death cannot claim eligibility based on subsequent events such as marriage or widowhood. The division bench of justice Rajan Roy and justice Abhdesh Kumar Choudhary passed this judgement on April 24 while dismissing the special appeal of one Deepika Tiwari. The issue of the case was whether a woman who married the government employee's son approximately two years after his death and subsequently became a widow could be entitled to a compassionate appointment. The court had to interpret Regulations 103 to 107 of the Uttar Pradesh Intermediate Education Act, 1921, to determine whether the status of "widowed daughter-in-law" should have existed at the time of the employee's death. As per the judgement, one Sangeeta Bajpai, an assistant teacher at Nari Shiksha Niketan Inter College in Lucknow, died in service on April 23, 2021. She is survived by her husband and her unemployed son, Nikhil Bajpai. His son's application for compassionate appointment was rejected on April 10, 2023, on the grounds that his father was a pensioner. Meanwhile, Nikhil Bajpai married appellant - Deepika Tiwari on February 15, 2023. Nikhil passed away shortly after their marriage, on May 13, 2023. Following her husband's death, appellant Deepika applied for compassionate appointment as Sangeeta Bajpai's "widowed daughter-in-law". Although she initially received an appointment order, it was revoked following objections from the educational institution. This special appeal was filed after a single bench of the high court dismissed her petition. The division bench of the HC dismissed the special appeal, upholding the decision of the single bench. The court held that the appellant had no right to the appointment because she was not even the daughter-in-law of the family at the time of Sangeeta Bajpai's death....