Chandigarh, Sep 22 The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday directed the Punjab chief secretary to appear before it on October 5 in a case pertaining to pending dearness allowance of state employees and pensioners.
A bench of Chief Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Rohit Kapoor passed the direction while hearing pleas related to non-compliance of the court's August 3 order to release pending dearness allowance (DA) and dearness relief dues to state employees and pensioners at the rates paid to All India Services (IAS/IPS/IFS) officers serving in the state on the Central government pattern.
The petitioners' counsel, Sunny Singla, said the high court directed Chief Secretary K A P Sinha to appear before it on October 5 for not complying with its previous order.
On August 3, the court directed the Punjab government to release all up-to-date pending instalments of DA to all its employees and pensioners within a fortnight.
The court had also directed that till all such dues are cleared, the state of Punjab shall not resort to any unproductive expenditures, such as large-scale advertising campaigns in print or social media, as these expenses cannot justify the denial of dues admissible to state employees.
In default of payment within the time aforesaid, the unpaid amounts shall carry simple interest at the rate of 6 per cent per annum, the court had said.
The chief secretary was directed to ensure scrupulous compliance of the directions and file a compliance report through an affidavit before the registry of the court by August 31.
On Tuesday, the court was apprised of the unproductive expenditure by the state government despite directions against the same until the dues were cleared, Singla said.
The court was told about the state’s stand that it was trying to amicably settle the issue.
The Punjab government had filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court on September 1 against the high court order, contending that the direction to pay arrears totalling around Rs 14,191 crore in such a short period was constitutionally impossible.
During the previous hearing on September 10, the high court had noted that though the state government had filed the plea in the Supreme Court, defects in the same were not removed.
