Kolkata, Dec 22 (IANS): A division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Friday upheld the earlier single- judge bench of the same court allowing the West Bengal government employees, under the umbrella of Joint Forum of State Government Employees, to conduct protest demonstrations in front of the state secretariat in support of their demands for dearness allowance (DA) allowances at par with central government employees and the arrears accrued on it.

Although the agitation has started already from Friday morning, the state government approached the division bench of Chief Justice Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharya on the same morning challenging the earlier order by the single-judge bench of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha on Thursday allowing the protest demonstration.

However, the division bench too had upheld the single- judge bench order, through curtailing the period of demonstration by a day till 4 p.m. on Saturday, instead of the originally scheduled demonstration till 4 p.m. on Sunday.

The division bench observed that since the demonstration had already started it is better to allow it to continue but only till 4 p.m. on Saturday keeping in view the forthcoming Christmas festival.

However, the division bench also directed no provocative statement that might disturb the peace can be uttered from the demonstration venue.

The joint forum representatives smell victory in the judgement by the division bench. According to them, the state government and the police administration since the beginning had been trying to create hurdles for their peaceful demonstration. “But we had trust in the judiciary,” the joint forum convener Bhaskar Ghosh said.

On Thursday Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had announced an additional four per cent DA for the state government employees. However, the joint forum has described the increase as just an eyewash as a gap of 36 per cent still remains with the central government employees