The Dearness Allowance impasse in Bengal now has intervention from the Calcutta High Court.

The Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam directed the state government on Thursday to sit for an across-the-table talks with the agitating government employees and find an amicable solution to the DA logjam. The Bench directed the state to include senior bureaucrats of the government like the chief secretary and finance secretary in the meeting to ensure fruitful and result-oriented discussions. The protestors would be represented by three members from their side, the court stated.

The dialogue, the court directed, would have to be held by 17 April.

The court directions came on a day when yet another pen-down protest by the protestors crippled government services across the state. A long-drawn protest, of which the Thursday strike was a part, is being held by a federation of state government employees against the state’s decision to offer them 6 per cent DA in contrast to the alleged 37 per cent backlog as compared to their central government counterparts. The state argued that the day’s strike would cost the state exchequer Rs 436 crores.

State Advocate General, Soumendra Nath Mookherjee, while assuring the court of a fruitful dialogue, sought names of representatives from the protestors’ camp during the course of the hearing itself.

While hearing a Writ petition filed by advocate Rama Prasad Sarkar who moved court against recurrent strikes and the state’s stringent position to not pay DA over 6 per cent, the Bench expressed concern over the daily harassment faced by people on account of massive slowdown in services in state-run public offices forced by recurrent strikes and pen-down protests.

It deserves mention that the aggrieved employees have already filed a Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court and the matter is likely to be heard by the Apex court on 11 April.

“People would come to government offices from afar hoping to get their job done. But they will return empty-handed. Not everybody is financially capable of making repeated journeys,” the Bench observed.

Following an enquiry by the Bench about the prevailing situation in hospitals in the wake of Thursday’s strike and the counsel for the agitating employees responding that only emergency services were operational, the Bench observed that judicial services should also be brought under the purview of emergency services.

“The matter is being adjudicated by the Supreme Court. Could the protestors not wait for the direction from the Apex court before deciding to call for another strike?” the Acting Chief Justice asked. “Our chief minister has insulted us with her comments. This pen down was in protest against those statements,” responded Saptangshu Basu, counsel for the agitating employees.

The court also maintained that the loss which the state has claimed on account of the strike needed to be looked into.