The Supreme Court on Wednesday set aside the Punjab and Haryana High Court order granting an interim stay on a law providing 75% reservation to Haryana residents in private sector jobs, ANI reported.
A bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha said that the High Court had not given sufficient reasons for staying the law, PTI reported.
The judge’s gave the High Court a month to decide on the matter and also asked the state government to not take coercive steps against employers who do not want to implement the law till the case is settled.
“We do not intend to deal with merits of matter as we propose to request the High Court to decide expeditiously and not later than four weeks,” the bench said. “Parties are directed not to seek adjournment and be present before court for fixing the schedule for hearing.”
On February 3, 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 Haryana government moved the Supreme Court against the verdict.
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 that the reservation will harm industrial development and private investment. The Faridabad Industries Association in February this year had called the Act unconstitutional and arbitrary and moved the High Court.
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