NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Uttarakhand government to continue with its 16-year-old decision granting 30% horizontal reservation in public employment exclusively to state-domiciled women and stayed a high court order that had opened up the quota for women from anywhere in India, reports Dhananjay Mahapatra.
After hearing solicitor general Tushar Mehta’s defence of the 2006 government order granting 30% job quota for the women domiciled in Uttarakhand, a bench of Justices S Abdul Nazeer and V Ramasubramanian issued notice to the PIL petitioner before the HC and ordered that “the impugned HC order shall remain stayed, until further orders”.
The state had through a government order (GO) of July 24, 2006 provided 30% horizontal reservation to women domiciled in the state, irrespective of their caste, creed, place of birth, place of origin and social status. This GO operated uninterruptedly for 16 years before being challenged before the HC by one Pavitra Chauhan this year. The HC stayed the operation of the GO only for state-domiciled and said the quota shall be construed as horizontal reservation for women irrespective of their domicile or place of residence.
Challenging the high court, state’s standing counsel Vansaja Shukla told the apex court that the state’s terrain and climate forced the youth to migrate elsewhere in search of livelihood, leaving the responsibility on women to run the household and raise children, and defended the decision to provide quota in public employment to such women.
