Second Strike By Govt. Employees in 15 days; Panjab Moves SCI for DA Dues

September

2026

Work in all government offices in Panjab halted on 8 Sep, as ministerial staff went on a pen-down strike in offices in Chandigarh and Sahibzada Ajit Singh (SAS) Nagar, and on a mass casual leave in other districts. This is the second agitation by government employees against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government after the statewide mass casual leave on 27 Aug, demanding the release of Dearness Allowance (DA), although other government institutions such as power and transport remained functional. At the Chandigarh secretariat, employees wearing rosh (protest) badges gathered in large numbers to protest. The employees are demanding the immediate rollback of the letter issued by the Panjab government that called their mass casual leave on 27 Aug to protest as ‘unauthorized leave’. On 3 Aug, the Punjab and Haryana High Court (PHHC) had ordered the state government to clear the pending DA arrears for its employees and pensioners within 15 days—a time period that has lapsed. The AAP government has now challenged the PHHC order in the Supreme Court of India, contending that the direction to pay arrears totaling around USD 1.50B in such a short period was ‘constitutionally impossible’. The plea stated: ‘Compliance is not merely difficult; it is constitutionally impossible in the time allowed.’ The plea also challenges the PHHC's direction restraining the state from incurring unproductive expenditure. The matter was scheduled for hearing in the PHHC on 7 Sep, after Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra took the oath as the Chief Justice. The petitioner side said such expenditures on large-scale advertisements were still being made. However, on 3 Sep the Panjab government had urged the protesting 420K state employees to abandon the ‘confrontation approach’ and ‘return to the negotiating table’. It offered them a salary plus DA on par with union government staff. It announced that the DA for around 85K government employees recruited after 17 Jul 2020 will be raised from the existing 42% to 60%. But the employees united under Sanjha Mulazam Manch (United Employees Platform) are planning statewide agitations through the coming months if the DA is not paid (earlier coverage).