New Delhi: In a major relief to West Bengal government employees, the Supreme Court on Thursday directed the state government to pay dependency allowance (DA) to its employees under the West Bengal Services (Salaries and Allowances Amendment) Rules, 2008, ruling that the benefit cannot be denied on the ground of financial constraints.However, the Supreme Court did not declare DA to be a fundamental right and set aside this part of the 2022 Calcutta High Court judgment.The court directed that DA’s arrears for the period 2008 to 2019 must be paid and reiterated that as per its previous interim order, at least 25% of the arrears must be released by March 6, ANI reported. The judgment was delivered by a division bench of Justices Sanjay Carroll and Prashant Kumar Mishra, which was hearing pleas, including those filed by the West Bengal government, challenging the high court order asking the state to pay the same wages to central government employees as they did and clear the arrears since July 2009. The Supreme Court held that while employees were entitled to DA under the state’s own wage adjustment rules from 2008 onwards, the high court was wrong to treat DA as a fundamental right.The bench ruled that the state government “cannot cite financial crisis as a reason” to deny wage subsidy to employees, noting that statutory service rules, once framed, are binding on employers.Ruling Union Minister Sukanta Majumdar welcomed the Supreme Court’s verdict, saying it was “wrong” for the Supreme Court to call the Mamata Banerjee-led government’s stand.“Today, we welcome the verdict of the Supreme Court of the country. The Supreme Court said that the Mamata Banerjee government’s stand was wrong. The Mamata Banerjee government did not consider dearness allowance to be a right of employees. But today, the Supreme Court declared that dearness allowance is indeed a right of employees. The Supreme Court has ordered that the West Bengal government must pay 25% DA to its employees...” Majumdar said.The judgment comes after the Supreme Court earlier directed the West Bengal government to clear 25 per cent of DA arrears within six months. However, the state failed to comply with the directive and sought an additional six months.Hearings in the case ended in September last year, after which the court reserved its judgment. The ruling was finally handed down after about five months of waiting. The controversy came after the Calcutta High Court in 2022 directed the state government to release development assistance as per the standards applicable to central government employees and waive off pending arrears, prompting the state to approach the Supreme Court.
