Supreme Court To Hear Punjab Government's Challenge To Criminal Contempt Case Against Chief Secretary Over DA Arrears
Supreme Court has indicated that it would prefer to hear the State’s main challenge to the DA arrears judgment.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge to the Punjab and Haryana High Court order issuing a contempt notice to Punjab Chief Secretary KAP Sinha over the state government's failure to comply with its directions on payment of pending dearness allowance (DA) arrears to employees and pensioners.
Senior Advocate Vikas Singh mentioned the issue before a CJI Surya Kant led bench which agreed to hear the case tomorrow.
Singh told court today that the State’s Special Leave Petition challenging the High Court’s August 3 order directing payment of DA and Dearness Relief (DR) arrears had been re-filed on October 1, 2026, after curing registry defects.
Notably the high court also directed Sinha to file a compliance affidavit by November 13 and appear in person on November 17, the next date of hearing.
Justice Harsh Bunger heard a contempt petition filed by a retired chief engineer of the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL), alleging non-compliance with the High Court's August 3, 2026, directions to clear pending DA and Dearness Relief (DR) arrears by August 18.
The plea before Supreme Court challenges the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s October 12 order issuing notice to Chief Secretary Sinha to show cause why criminal contempt proceedings should not be initiated against him. The proceedings stem from an alleged misstatement in an affidavit concerning the status of the State’s appeal before the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court has further been told that a separate civil contempt petition over non-compliance with the DA payment directions was already pending before the High Court and that the criminal contempt proceedings could not be used to bypass the prescribed procedure.
During the hearing, Senior Advocate Singh referred to the substantial financial liability arising from the High Court’s directions and submitted that around ₹5,000 crore had already been paid under the liquidation plan.
"No notice of motion had been issued on either application, no reply had been called for, and the objections to maintainability had not been decided, nor had the locus of the applicants been examined," the court has been told on the initiation of contempt proceedings.
Yesterday, during a hearing before the high court, Punjab government submitted that its Special Leave Petition (SLP) challenging the August 3 order had been cured of all procedural defects and was likely to be listed before the Supreme Court shortly after Diwali.
However, counsel for the petitioners pointed out that the appeal had not yet been assigned a case number. The High Court made it clear that merely filing an appeal before the Supreme Court did not absolve the state of its obligation to comply with its directions. Unless the Supreme Court stayed or modified the order, the state remained bound by it.
Case title: ADDITIONAL CHIEF SECRETARY Vs MANJEET SINGH RANDHAWA
Bench: CJI Kant, Justice Bagchi and Justice Mohana
Hearing date: November 4, 2026