The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday directed Punjab Chief Secretary KAP Sinha to explain why criminal contempt proceedings should not be initiated against him over what the court described as a prima facie false statement regarding the state government’s appeal in the dearness allowance dispute.
A bench of Chief Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Rohit Kapoor passed the direction in Sinha’s presence after receiving a status report from the Supreme Court registry. The report showed that the Punjab government’s appeal was still pending with defects.
The court noted that this position was contrary to Sinha’s statement made on Monday that a fresh appeal had been filed before the Supreme Court after the defects had been cured.
The chief secretary has been directed to show cause against the proposed criminal contempt proceedings and remain personally present when the matter is taken up again on Friday.
Employees And Pensioners Allege Non-Compliance
The proceedings arose from two applications filed by Punjab government employees and pensioners alleging that the state had failed to comply with the High Court’s August 3 judgment on payment of pending DA installments.
In that judgment, the court had directed Punjab to release all outstanding DA installments to employees and pensioners within a fortnight at rates corresponding to those paid by the Centre to All India Services officers, including IAS, IPS and IFS officers.
The High Court had also restrained the state from incurring what it termed unproductive expenditure, including large-scale print and social media advertisement campaigns, until the outstanding dues were cleared. The chief secretary was asked to file a compliance affidavit by August 31.
The state did not comply with the deadline and filed an appeal before the Supreme Court on September 1.
However, the appeal had not been taken up even after about a month because defects pointed out by the Supreme Court registry had not been rectified.
Supreme Court Registry Report Sought
In view of differing claims made by the petitioners and the state regarding the status of the appeal, the High Court had on October 5 sought a report from the Supreme Court registry.
The report placed before the bench on Tuesday confirmed that the appeal continued to remain defective. Counsel appearing for the petitioners then sought contempt action against the chief secretary.
Senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for the Punjab government, accused the petitioners of bench-hunting and referred to the lengthy documentation involved in filing appeals on behalf of the state while seeking an adjournment.
The bench agreed to adjourn the matter until Friday but issued a show-cause notice to Sinha over his statement concerning the status of the Supreme Court appeal.
The detailed order is awaited.
