The Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday pulled up the Punjab government for “attempting to buy time” by not properly pursuing an appeal against its August 3 order directing payment of pending dearness allowance (DA) dues to state government employees and pensioners within a fortnight, and sought an immediate status report from the Supreme Court registry on the appeal.
The bench of chief justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and justice Rohit Kapoor sought the report after noting that the state’s appeal, filed on September 1, appeared to be lying under defects for more than a month. The court also directed the state’s chief secretary, KAP Sinha, to remain present when the matter comes up again on Tuesday.
One more petition filed by the PSPCL against the August 3 judgment is also lying under defect.
The order came during the hearing of two applications filed by Punjab government employees and pensioners alleging that the August 3 high court order had not been complied with.
In this judgment, the court had directed the Punjab government to release all up-to-date pending instalments of DA to all its employees and pensioners at the rates paid to the members of the All India Services (IAS/IPS/IFS) officers serving in the state on the central government pattern within a fortnight.
The court had also ordered that till all such dues were cleared, the government would not “resort to any unproductive expenditures”, such as large-scale advertising campaigns in print or social media, as these expenses could not justify the denial of dues admissible to state employees.
The chief secretary was also asked to ensure scrupulous compliance and file an affidavit about it by August 31.
However, the government failed to comply with the order and filed an appeal before the apex court on September 1. Month on, the case has not been taken up by the apex court as the government has yet to remove some defects pointed out by the Supreme Court registry, said lawyers.
The high court noted that for more than a month, the defects pointed out in the appeal had not been cured.
“We are at our wits’ end to comprehend as to what is actually intended by the State of Punjab by playing hide and seek with the court. If the appeal had already been filed on 01.09.2026 before the Supreme Court, it could have been got heard by now. It appears that the attempt is only to buy time in the garb of pursuing a legal remedy before the Supreme Court,” the bench observed in the presence of Punjab chief secretary KAP Sinha, summoned by the court to attend the hearing, and state’s advocate general MS Bedi.
The court observed that on almost all occasions when the case was listed, a large number of retired people remained present in the court, hoping that someday their rights/claims would fructify. “This, however, has not happened despite the attempts made by the court,” it asserted, asking the registry to immediately obtain a status report from the Supreme Court registry about the status of appeal as on 10.30 am October 5.
Sinha had filed an affidavit stating that the government had taken a conscious decision to avail of the remedy available in law and the appeal filed was lying pending under defect before the apex court.
“Now the same has been re-filed by the state government after removing the defects and is likely to be listed as per the procedures,” Sinha submitted.
“This statement (regarding defects) of fact is emphatically denied by the applicants. In the event a false statement is made before the court, then the party making such statement would have to bear the consequences,” the court observed while noting submissions from both the advocate general and Sinha that defects had been removed.