The Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday sought a formal response from the Punjab government on a criminal contempt petition initiated against chief secretary KAP Sinha for making a “prima facie false statement” in the ongoing dearness allowance (DA) case of Punjab employees and pensioners.
In that ruling, the court ordered the state to release all pending DA installments to employees and pensioners on a par with central government rates paid to All India Services (IAS/IPS/IFS) officers within a fortnight. The contempt proceedings against the chief secretary stems from August 3 order of high court. The government failed to meet the deadline and filed an appeal in the Supreme Court on September 1. However, on October 5 Sinha made a claim before the court that a fresh appeal had been filed in DA case in Supreme Court after curing all defects, a statement-proved wrong from the records of the SC registry.
Because the state has not rectified defects flagged by the top court’s registry, a month later, the top court is yet to hear the matter.
The court also barred the state from indulging in “unproductive expenditures”, such as large-scale print or social media ad campaigns, until all dues were settled, directing the chief secretary to file a compliance affidavit by August 31. Following this, the bench of chief justice had referred the matter to the present bench having contempt court jurisdiction on Friday.
