Bharat Pensioners Samaj

The  Calcutta High Court  today held that  dearness allowance  (DA) was a legal right of West Bengal government employees. A division bench comprising Justices  Debasish Kar Gupta  and  Sekhar Bobby Saraf  set aside a  State Administrative Tribunal  (SAT) order that had said that  DA  cannot be claimed as a right by the  state government  employees. The bench held that the employees' claim for  DA  as per the central government  DA  rates would be decided by the SAT, which was asked by the court to rehear the issue. It also asked the tribunal to decide whether the state government was justified to pay differential rates to its employees posted at  Delhi  and  Chennai. The division bench observed that the central government fixes DA of its employees across the country at the same rate without discriminating on the place of posting. The court said it cannot be said that employees in Kolkata were affected differently from inflation compared to those posted in  Delhi  or