Kolkata: There is no pending dearness allowances (DA) arrears pending in the state, the West Bengal government has informed the Calcutta High Court.
Recently, a public interest litigation was filed before the division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj, questioning the decision of the state government to provide donation of Rs 60,000 to each community Durga Puja committees at a time when the state government is unable to pay the DA arrears to the state government employees because of financial crunch.
The first hearing in the matter was on Tuesday afternoon, where the state government counsel filed the affidavit containing the government’s response and also argued that the payment of donations to the Puja committees and DA arrear payments are unrelated matters and hence, the PIL concerned is not admissible.
Incidentally, another case relating to the DA arrear payments is pending before a division bench of Justice Harish Tandon and Justice Rabindranath Samanta, which earlier ordered the state government to pay the DA arrears to state government employees within three months.
Following the deadline passing, a contempt of court petition has been filed against the state government, which, in turn, has submitted a review petition requesting the division bench to reconsider its decision on payment of DA arrears within three months.
Now, the affidavit filed on Tuesday in the PIL on dole to Puja committees, the state government has made a contradictory claim that there is no pending DA arrears payment.
–IANS