BENGALURU: A petition has been filed before the Karnataka High Court challenging the constitutional validity of the Karnataka Platform-Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Act, 2025, enacted in the state, and the Rules 2025 framed thereunder.
It was also challenged in the petition the constitution of the Karnataka Platform-Based Gig Workers Welfare Board, and also the government order dated February 13 issued by the State Government on the ground that they are repugnant to the Code on Social Security (COSS), 2020, enacted by Parliament, and they are manifestly arbitrary and violate the Constitution.
The petition has been filed by the Internet and Mobile Association of India, Eternal Limited, Zepto Limited, Swiggy Limited, Urban Company Limited and Valmo Transportation Private Limited. In the petition, which is yet to come for hearing, both the State and Union governments have been made as the respondents.
The petitioners stated that the COSS was enacted by the Parliament with the objective of consolidating a number of labour welfare legislations and establishing a uniform national framework for social security for all workers, including gig workers.
The Parliament intended to wholly and entirely occupy the legislative field relating to social security of gig workers by creating a comprehensive statutory scheme providing for identification of gig workers, and the regulatory mechanism through which such schemes are to be implemented, the petitioners stated.
Despite the existence of this comprehensive central framework, the Karnataka government has enacted the impugned Act seeking to regulate the very same subject matter, namely the social security and welfare of gig workers, the petitioners alleged.