The state government on Tuesday informed the Calcutta High Court that there were no dearness allowances (DA) arrears pending in West Bengal. The response from the state government came after it filed an affidavit in reply to a PIL.
Last month, several PILs were filed before the division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj, questioning the decision of the state government to provide a grant of Rs 60,000 each to over 40,000 Durga Puja committees across the state at a time when the state government is unable to pay the pending DA arrears to its employees due to a financial crunch.
During a hearing on the matter on Tuesday, the state government’s counsel filed the affidavit with its response and also argued that “the payment of grants to Durga Puja committees and DA arrear payments are two separate matters and unrelated, and therefore, the PIL is not admissible”.
Advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, appearing for the petitioners, said, “The state government cannot provide grants to puja committees like this. This is illegal. The state government on various excuses have been providing such funds to puja committees for the past few years, but it could not come clear on how these funds were utilised. Therefore, there is a need to find out the truth.”
