The Supreme Court passed an interim order on Friday asking the Bengal government to clear 25 per cent of its employees’ dearness allowance dues within three months, an exercise likely to cost the state exchequer well over ₹10,000 crore.

Initially, the bench was inclined to order the payment of 50 per cent DA arrears but senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the Bengal government, pleaded that such a directive would be “backbreaking” for thestate’s finances.

Senior advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya, who represented one of the employees’ unions, told The Telegraph that the directive applied only to the DA arrears accrued between 2009 and 2019. The arrears represent the difference between the DA rates of the Centre and the state government.

The order by the bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Sandeep Mehta ends a two-and-a-half-year wait for state government employees, who have had to endure 17 adjournments on the matter.

The apex court is hearing the Bengal government’s appeal, moved in 2022, against the contempt proceedings initiated against it before Calcutta High Court by the Confederation of State Government Employees and others over its failure to clear theirDA dues.

The high court had in 2022 directed the state to pay DA on a par with central government employees within three months. A division bench later dismissed the state’sreview petition.

The apex court’s official order had not been uploaded till late evening. Friday’s order is an interim directive, and the bench has posted the next hearing to August.

The central government’s current DA rate is 55 per cent of the basic salary while the Bengal government’s rate has reached 18 per cent following a 4 per cent hike last month. However, for the state employees, the relevant central and state DA rates are those that applied between 2009 and 2019.

Sources in the Bengal administration said the difference would be an average 34 per cent over the relevant 10-year period, and the total expenditure incurred in carrying out the court directive would be well over ₹10,000 crore.

The DA paid to employees in the public and private sectors is usually determined on the basis of the cost of living and inflationary trends. DA is, however, not a statutory stipulation.

The Bengal government’s appeal was first listed on November 28, 2022. Friday’s hearing was the 18th.

The adjournments owed mostly to the paucity of time and changes to the composition of the benches forced by the retirements of judges.

This apart, in December 2022, Justice Dipankar Datta had recused himself from the hearing, citing motivated and malicious reports in some Bengal media outlets against him.

Three state government employees’ unions had moved the contempt petition before the high court, against the chief secretary and the finance secretary.

These were the Confederation of State Government Employees, the Karmachari Parishad and the Unity Forum.