The Supreme Court will on Thursday pronounce its verdict on the Bengal government’s appeal challenging the initiation of contempt proceedings in Calcutta High Court by state employees who questioned the delay in the disbursal of dearness allowance (DA) arrears.

A bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra, which had earlier reserved the judgment in August last year, will deliver the verdict on Thursday morning, according to the official cause list issued on Wednesday.

The top court had earlier held several days of hearing as it examined the arguments of senior advocates — P.S. Patwalia, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya and Bansuri Swaraj — appearing for various employees’ associations, who defended the high court’s decision and rejected claims of the state that conceding the request would inflict a huge financial burden on the government.

The matter has been pending since December 2022 in the Supreme Court and had witnessed several adjournments

The state was represented by a battery of senior lawyers comprising Kapil Sibal, Shyam Divan, Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Huzefa Ahmad.

On June 27 last year, citing financial constraints, Bengal had pleaded with the Supreme Court for a “six-month” extension of the deadline fixed by the top court on May 16 that year to the state to pay an interim 25 per cent DA to the government employees.

On May 16, 2025, in an interim order the Supreme Court had directed the Bengal government to pay “within three months” “25 percent of dearness allowance” to state employees.

An earlier bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Sandeep Mehta had passed the interim order, bringing to a temporary halt the tantalising wait of the employees who endured 18 adjournments on the issue after the Mamata government filed an appeal in 2022 challenging the contempt proceedings initiated against it before Calcutta
High Court by the Confederation of State Government Employees and others challenging the refusal of the state to clear their dearness allowance.