Kolkata, Sep 22: The West Bengal government on Thursday received a major jolt as a division bench of the Calcutta High Court dismissed its review petition to reconsider an earlier judgement of the same bench directing the state government to clear the pending dearness allowance (DA) arrears to the employees within three months.
On May 20, Calcutta High Court’s division bench of Justice Harish Tandon and Justice Rabindranath Samanta directed the state government to clear the pending DA arrears to the state government employees within the next three months. However, the state government filed a review petition at the same bench with the plea for reconsidering the judgement.
On Thursday morning, the same division bench dismissed the review petition and upheld its earlier order on this count on May 22. Meanwhile, the Confederation of State Government Employees, the original petitioner in the matter, has filed a contempt of court petition at the Calcutta High Court against the state government for missing the deadline for the clear the DA arrears to the state government. The next hearing on that contempt of court petition will be on November 9.
“After the earlier order on May 20, we gave a letter to the state government to cooperate with us and clear the pending DA arrears as directed by the court. However, the state government ignored our call. So now we will not go for such appeals or rather start a major agitation against the state government in support of our demands,” said the confederation of president, Shyamal Kumar Mitra.
Till the report was filed there was no reaction from the state government or whether they would accept the order of the Calcutta High Court or move to a higher court against the decision.
In 2016, the state government employees had filed a petition at the SAT demanding 32 per cent dearness allowances as per the recommendations for the Fifth Pay Commission. The petition was filed by the Confederation of State Government Employees.
After a prolonged legal battle, the SAT, in July 2020, had directed the state government to pay the dearness allowances to its employees at par with their counterparts in the Union government. The state government had challenged that order at the Calcutta High Court. (IANS)