Chandigarh: The Punjab govt on Tuesday filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court against the Punjab and Haryana high court‘s Aug 3 judgment directing it to clear pending dearness allowance (DA) and dearness relief of approximately Rs 14,191 crore to state employees within a fortnight.The SLP points out that the arrears are close to three months of the state’s entire annual salary and pension expenditure, which stands at approximately Rs 58,064.05 crore according to the revised estimates for FY 2025-26. The state submitted that compliance with such a direction within 14 days is not merely financially difficult but constitutionally impermissible without following the procedure prescribed for withdrawal from the Consolidated Fund of the State.The SLP challenges the HC judgment on several other grounds, including the comparison of Punjab govt employees with All India Services officers for determining DA parity.Punjab clarified that it is willing to ensure that its employees get parity with comparable Central govt employees in terms of actual salary, submitting that DA should be determined with reference to the overall salary package. It has offered to increase DA to provide its employees parity in absolute take-home salary with analogous Central govt categoriesThe govt maintained that this approach would protect the interests of employees while avoiding a situation where applying the same DA percentage results in a substantially higher overall salary because the underlying basic pay in Punjab is already higher in several categories.According to the state govt, most cadres, such as clerks, constables, drivers, stenographers, and ETT Teachers, already earn more take home pay than their central counterparts. For instance, a Punjab clerk currently earns a take-home salary of Rs 54,812 (at 42% DA) compared to Rs 36,960 for a central clerk (at 60% DA). Increasing Punjab’s DA to 60% would raise a Punjab clerk‘s salary to Rs 61,760.The Punjab govt’s central argument is that DA percentage cannot be viewed in isolation from basic pay. Since DA is calculated as a percentage of basic pay, applying a higher central percentage to a higher Punjab basic-pay base can result in a significantly higher overall salary rather than genuine parity.The state also questioned whether a court can itself determine the rate, timing and manner of payment of DA where the applicable statutory rules do not prescribe an automatic central govt-linked rate.The state further pointed out that Punjab’s salary and pension commitments place a particularly heavy burden on its finances. According to the material compiled by the cabinet sub-committee, expenditure on salaries and pensions accounts for approximately 51% of the state’s revenue receipts, compared with an all-India average of around 38%, while committed liabilities including interest account for approximately 82% of revenue receipts.Aligning DA fully with the central rate would entail an additional recurring burden of approximately Rs 6,500 crore every year. An increase of 18 percentage points in DA would take the expenditure on salaries and pensions from approximately 52% to 57.5% of revenue receipts.This means that a very large share of the state’s available revenue is already committed to salaries and pensions for a relatively small section of the population. Every additional rupee spent on recurring salaries, pensions and DA is a rupee that cannot simultaneously be spent on schools, hospitals, infrastructure, development and other public services, Punjab said. The state submitted that fiscal capacity is a legitimate and necessary consideration in determining compensation for employees.The state told the Supreme Court that it is not seeking to deny employees the benefit to which they are legally entitled. Rather, it has offered to provide the necessary DA enhancement to ensure parity in actual salary with comparable Central categories. At the same time, it has sought to continue payment of admitted arrears under the existing liquidation plan while the matter is adjudicated by the Supreme Court.Addressing the Article 14 parity argument with IAS officers, Punjab argued that the comparison is legally invalid. Payments to IAS officers are governed by central law (the All-India Services Act, 1951) which the state has no power to alter, whereas state employees fall under the state’s exclusive constitutional competence. Citing Supreme Court precedents like State of MP vs GC Mandawar, the state contended that employees under different rule-making authorities cannot be equated for DA parity. annot lawfully withdraw such an amount from the Consolidated Fund without the constitutionally prescribed legislative process.