Chandigarh: Punjab and Haryana high court on Tuesday issued a notice to the Punjab chief secretary to explain why proceedings for criminal contempt should not be initiated against him for “wilfully misleading” the court by making false assertions regarding the status of the state’s appeal in Supreme Court in the dearness allowance (DA) case.




The division bench of Chief Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Rohit Kapoor passed the order after receiving a status report from the Supreme Court registry , which showed that the defects pointed out in the appeal filed by Punjab had not been removed. The bench also noted the subsequent appeal filed by PSPCL was lying “under defects”.




The Chief Justice observed, “From the material placed on record, we prima facie find that there is a deliberate misstatement of fact made by the chief secretary before this court. We are therefore issuing a notice to the chief secretary to explain why proceedings of criminal contempt should not be initiated against him for wilfully misleading this court by making false assertions.” The matter was adjourned to Friday.




The development came a day after the CS appeared before the bench and filed an affidavit stating that the state had filed a special leave petition (SLP) in SC, challenging HC’s Aug 3 judgment, and that the appeal had been re-filed after removing the defects. In the affidavit, the chief secretary had stated that the SLP was now likely to be listed as per procedure.




The bench took the affidavit on record on Monday and directed its registry to obtain a status report from SC registry regarding the appeals filed by Punjab govt and PSPCL. On Tuesday, the report received from SC registry indicated that both appeals were still “lying in defect”.




State Advocate General Maninderjit Singh Bedi , however, contended that the observation that a wrong statement had been made before HC was incorrect as the appeal had been re-filed before SC and there was no defect. The bench refused to accept the submission, stating that the SC registry’s report mentioned that the re-filed appeal also contained numerous defects.




The proceedings also saw the state challenge the maintainability of the proceedings initiated by the applicants. Senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for the state, contended that the applicants were indulging in “bench hunting”, arguing that once contempt proceedings had already been filed before the single bench, it was not open to non-party applicants to approach HC under Article 215 of the Constitution.




Senior advocate Sanjay Kaushal, appearing for the applicants, submitted that those who had filed the application under Article 215 were in fact petitioners in the petition that had been disposed of on Aug 3, hence it was incorrect to contend that they were not parties to the earlier proceedings.




Senior advocate Chetan Mittal, also appearing for the applicants / interveners, submitted that instead of getting its defective appeal regularised before SC, Punjab govt had been trying to “buy time” and indulged in other acts of alleged “deliberate disobedience”.




The bench recalled that in its Aug 3 judgment, Punjab govt and PSPCL were directed to release all pending instalments of DA / DR to employees and pensioners at the same rates as paid to members of All India Services serving in Punjab. The chief secretary was directed to ensure compliance and file an affidavit by Aug 31, 2026.




HC noted that no compliance affidavit was filed and that the state had subsequently approached the apex court against the Aug 3 judgment. In its Sept 22 order, the bench had directed the chief secretary to remain present on Oct 5 unless the state secured protection from SC, after finding prima facie that its orders had not been complied with.




HC pointed out that it had repeatedly adjourned the matter to enable the state to pursue its remedy before SC. In its Oct 5 order, the bench noted that the state’s Sept 1 appeal continued to remain “under defect” for more than a month. So too was the subsequent PSPCL appeal.