‘Unlikely to withstand judicial scrutiny’

Ever since the private sector quota law was conceptualised by the BJP-JJP regime in Haryana, Hindustan Times was the first to report the legal implications of the law and why it was unlikely to withstand judicial scrutiny.

According to legal experts, the law is in contravention of the Constitution and will not withstand judicial scrutiny.

Former Haryana advocate general Ashok Aggarwal said domicile can never form the basis of employment. He said if public employment cannot be given on the basis of domicile how can private jobs be.

The government is not the employer in private sector jobs, he said. He added that only a small percentage of low-end jobs can be reserved and that too for special reasons.

While tabling the Bill in the state assembly, the government modified its Section 23 to provide the law an overriding effect on any other state law. The same provision provided an overriding effect to the law over any other law when an ordinance was approved by the cabinet.

Since the provision had the potential to be repugnant to an Act of Parliament, its wording was changed in the Bill.

However, issues raised by the law and legislative secretary during vetting of the proposed law still holds good, the experts said.

The clause providing for preference in jobs to the local candidates domiciled in Haryana, they said, was in contrafamily vention of Article 14 of the Constitution pertaining to equality before the law and Article 19 (1)(g) which provides for protection of certain rights to practice any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business.