The Uttarakhand High Court has issued a notice to the state government seeking an explanation for a law that grants a 10 percent reservation in government jobs to individuals who participated in the statehood movement and their dependents. The legislation, which was recently enacted in August after receiving assent from Governor Lt Gen (retd) Gurmit Singh, has sparked a legal challenge regarding its constitutionality.
During the hearing on Thursday, the bench, led by Chief Justice Ritu Bahri and Justice Alok Kumar Verma, directed the state government to respond within six weeks, emphasizing the need for data justifying the quota’s basis. Additionally, the High Court instructed the petitioner to forward a copy of the order to the state Public Service Commission to halt further actions related to the matter temporarily, although it declined to stay the act at this time.
The PIL, initiated by Dehradun resident Bhuvan Singh and others, labels the new Act as unconstitutional and calls for its repeal. The petition highlights a previous ruling by the court which stated that the state government could not provide reservations exclusively to the ‘Rajya Aandolankaris’ (state agitators), as all citizens of the state were deemed agitators in the movement for statehood. This prior decision was not contested by the state government at the Supreme Court level, leading to the controversial passage of the reservation law on August 18, 2024.
Advocate General of Uttarakhand, SN Babulkar, defended the government’s stance, arguing that it holds the authority to enact such legislation. He referenced the Supreme Court’s directions to frame a new reservation policy for economically weaker sections, under which the state government justified the new law for statehood agitators and their dependents.
