Bengal: DA hearing in Supreme Court postponed till Feb 2024

KOLKATA: The hearing of the dearness allowance (DA) case was postponed again in the Supreme Court on Friday with the Apex Court declaring that it will hear the matter again next February. This is the tenth time that the hearing has been postponed.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi who appeared on behalf of the state government told the court during the question-and-answer session on Friday that the court had earlier said that another day would be fixed for detailed hearing and pleaded for the case to be heard at a later date.

Advocates appearing on behalf of Confederation of State Government Employees’ Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharjee and Firdous Shamim said that the hearing is getting delayed again and again and urged for fixing a single day for the hearing.

After hearing the arguments of all parties, the Apex Court said that the case will be heard in the second week of February next year.

The state had approached the Supreme Court on November 3, 2022 challenging the order of Calcutta High Court that had ruled in May last year that DA should be given at the rate of 31 per cent to state government employees. The first hearing was held on November 28 but since then the dates have been delayed due to various reasons.

The argument of the state was that if DA is to be given according to the decision of the High Court, it would have to dole out Rs 41770 crore which was difficult for the state government to afford at the current juncture in the backdrop of the Centre owing several crores to the state.

During the rule of the erstwhile CPM government, DA was 35 per cent and the state government led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee went to the extent of providing 126 per cent DA for the state employees.