The West Bengal government on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that it has already disbursed 65% of the pending Dearness Allowance (DA) arrears owed to state government employees, amounting to more than Rs 7,700 crore.
A section of government employees, however, disputed the state's submission, claiming that many eligible employees are yet to receive their dues. The Supreme Court is scheduled to take up the matter again on Wednesday.
‘65% of Arrears Already Paid’: Bengal Tells SC
The matter came up before a Bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Prashant Kumar Mishra on Tuesday.
Appearing for the West Bengal government, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed the court that “65%” of the outstanding DA had already been paid, while the process of clearing the remaining amount was underway.
According to the state's submission, more than Rs 7,700 crore has so far been released towards the arrears.
The statement came as the apex court reviewed the implementation of its earlier directions concerning payment of pending DA to state government employees.
Advocates Karuna Nundy and Firdous Shamim, appearing for a section of the employees, contested the state's position and told the court that several government employees had still not received their pending DA.
Their contention was that the court's earlier judgment required the government to clear the arrears of “all deprived government employees”, but payments had not yet reached everyone entitled to them.
The dispute has therefore shifted focus to identifying employees who are allegedly still awaiting payment despite the state's claim of substantial compliance.
Supreme Court Seeks Names of Unpaid Employees
After hearing both sides, the Bench asked the petitioners to provide details of representatives from among those employees who claim they have not received the arrears.
The information is expected to help the court assess the gap between the government's disbursement figures and the employees' claims.
The matter will be heard again on Wednesday, following which the Supreme Court is expected to consider what further directions, if any, are required.
In its principal judgment in the West Bengal DA dispute, the Supreme Court had directed the state government to clear the entire outstanding DA liability.
The court had ordered the immediate payment of 25% of the arrears, while examining how the remaining 75% could be paid in phases without placing an excessive financial burden on the state.
A monitoring committee was subsequently constituted to oversee the implementation and work out the payment process.
The committee was tasked with assessing how much DA had been paid, how much remained outstanding and the state's plan for clearing the balance. It has since submitted its report to the parties concerned.
September 3 Deadline for First Instalment
The Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee has also set a deadline for payment to a section of employees whose records have already been digitised.
According to the state, the e-service books of 64,759 government employees have been scanned and uploaded.
The monitoring committee has directed the government to pay the first instalment of DA arrears for the 2008-2015 period to these employees by September 3.
