Summary of this article
The Supreme Court of India has ruled that a dearness relief (DR) to pensioners lower than the dearness allowance (DA) to employees is arbitrary and discriminatory.
In a case arising from KSRTC’s 3 per cent gap between DA and DR, the court held that inflation affects both groups equally.
It held that differential rates are violative of Article 14.
The Supreme Court of India, in a landmark ruling on April 11, 2026, dismantled the idea of disparity in dearness allowance (DA) and dearness relief (DR) payment to employees and pensioners, respectively. The court held that pensioners cannot be given a lower DR than the DA offered to serving employees.
The legal battle began within the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) when the corporation paid a differential DA and DR. It granted a 14 per cent DA hike to serving employees and capped the DR for pensioners at a mere 11 per cent. The difference of 3 per cent led the matter to reach the court. The pensioners challenged this gap, confronted the corporation, and appealed to the apex court.
The State of Kerala defended the lower hike, citing financial constraints. It argued that employees and pensioners constitute two separate classes and therefore two different rates for two different classes do not violate the right to equality under Article 14 of the Constitution.
The bench comprising Justice Manoj Misra and Justice Prasanna B. Varale, unconvinced with the State’s reasoning, held that the fundamental purpose of DA and DR is the same, to neutralise the impact of inflation.
It stated, “In our view, when those benefits serve a common purpose and are linked to inflation, and inflationary pressures do not discriminate between a serving employee and a pensioner, fixing different rates of enhancement of dearness allowance and dearness relief have no rational nexus to the object sought to be achieved and are clearly discriminatory as well as arbitrary.”
Though the court acknowledged that employees and pensioners are two different categories, inflation is not discriminatory for both categories. The court held that ‘inflationary pressures do not discriminate between a serving employee and a pensioner’ and thus, the difference in DA and DR hike is ‘clearly discriminatory as well as arbitrary’ and a violation of Article 14 of the Constitution.
The court highlighted that once the pension is admissible and DR is admissible on it, announcing a DR lower than the DA is clearly discriminatory. While the court accepted that financial difficulties might delay the payment of benefits, or may be paid at different dates, differential rates for these two classes cannot be justified.
The ruling sets a benchmark for pay parity, discouraging government bodies and public sector undertakings from adopting arbitrary practices. It is a crucial development as new labour codes take shape and the 8th Pay Commission recommendations are due next year.
