Less than two hours after taking oath as the Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra on Monday set the tone for his tenure while hearing the contentious dearness allowance (DA) case by asserting that the court would not be browbeaten by any tactics and would be guided by the rule of law and its oath to the Constitution.Acting Chief Justice of the High Court since June 1, Justice Mishra was administered the oath by Punjab Governor Gulab Chand Kataria as the full-time Chief Justice.While Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini attended the ceremony, Punjab CM Bhagwant Singh Mann was conspicuous by his absence.The oath came a day after the Punjab Cabinet passed a resolution objecting to Justice Mishra’s appointment. It appealed to the President, the Prime Minister and the Punjab Governor that the oath should not be administered to Justice Mishra until the state gave its consent.Meanwhile, the assertion in the DA case came after the Division Bench of Chief Justice Mishra and Justice Rohit Kapoor took exception to the state counsel addressing the court in a loud pitch during the hearing of applications concerning compliance with the court’s directions for the payment of the pending DA/dearness relief (DR) dues to Punjab Government employees and pensioners.“This court will be governed by the rule of law and this institution will not be browbeaten by any kind of tactics. We will go strictly as per the law. We have taken the oath of the Constitution and we know how to preserve our oath and defend it,” Chief Justice Mishra said.The Bench made it clear that it would not be influenced by submissions from either side. “Either side, don’t comment. You may have a lot of things to say or do, we will go by law. We have taken the oath of the Constitution,” Justice Mishra said.The remarks came during the hearing of applications arising from the Bench’s August order directing Punjab to release all up-to-date pending instalments of DA/DR to its employees and pensioners by August 31 and file a compliance affidavit. The court had also directed that until the dues were cleared, the state should not resort to unproductive expenditure such as large-scale advertisement campaigns in print or social media.The order was subsequently challenged by the state before the Supreme Court. Appearing before the Bench for one of the applicants, senior advocate Sanjay Kaushal submitted that Punjab had filed its challenge after August 31 and the defects pointed out by the Supreme Court Registry were yet to be removed.Kaushal also submitted that advertisements were still being issued by the state government in newspapers and referred to crores of rupees being released for women on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan.Appearing for another applicant, senior advocate Chetan Mittal submitted that the state was yet to file the compliance affidavit sought by the High Court. The Bench, however, said it would hear the applications after going through the case file. The matter is now likely to come up for further hearing on Thursday.Coming on the very day of his swearing-in, the assertion gave an early indication of the institutional tone Chief Justice Mishra intends to bring to the High Court.