The Haryana government on Friday moved the Supreme Court against a Punjab and Haryana High Court order that granted interim stay on a law providing 75% reservation to the state’s residents in private sector jobs, Live Law reported.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta mentioned the petition before a bench headed by Chief Justice NV Ramana for urgent hearing. The court agreed to list the matter on February 7, according to Bar and Bench.
On Thursday, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had passed the order on a petition challenging the constitutional validity of the Haryana State Employment of Local Candidates Act, 2020.
The law was enacted in November and came into effect on January 15.
The Act states that those who are domiciled in Haryana can avail of its benefits. To have domicile status, a person should be born in the state or should have lived there for at least 15 years.
The Act covers jobs that pay up to Rs 30,000 as gross monthly salary and applies to companies, societies, trusts, limited liability partnership firms, partnership firms located across the state.
The reservation in private jobs was one of the key promises made during the 2019 Assembly elections by the Jannayak Janta Party – the Bharatiya Janata Party’s alliance partner in Haryana.
In March, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry had said the reservation would be disastrous for industrial development and private investment.
Later in February this year, the Faridabad Industries Association had moved the High Court, saying that the Act was unconstitutional as it was excessively vague, arbitrary and gave appointing authorities broad powers.
It had argued that the Act violates Articles 14 (equality before law), 15 (prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth), and 19 (right to freedom, including to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India and practise any profession, trade or business) of the Constitution of India.
However, the Haryana government argued that the Act just makes “geographical classification”, which is permitted under the Constitution.
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