Justice Suraj Govindaraj of the Karnataka High Court extended to Uber India on 28 July the interim welfare-fee deposit arrangement an earlier bench had granted the other petitioners in the challenge to the Karnataka Platform-Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Act, 2025.1 The petitioners include the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), the industry body for the country's internet platforms, alongside the food delivery firms Swiggy and Zomato and the home services platform Urban Company.
The state law obliges platform aggregators to pay a welfare fee towards social security for gig workers. The petitioners argue it is repugnant to central law under Article 254 of the Indian constitution, the provision that voids a state law to the extent it conflicts with a parliamentary one on the same subject. Their case turns on whether labour welfare for platform workers belongs to Delhi or to the states, the same contest between state and national rulemaking that carried California's 45-day AI notice bill through a Senate committee in June.
The interim arrangement changes who holds the money rather than who owes it. Deposits accrue into court while the constitutional question is argued, so the platforms are paying the fee, the workers are not receiving it, and the state cannot spend it. Every month of listing delay grows a fund whose ownership nobody has established.
For labour policy across the region, the interesting part is what a ruling would settle. If Article 254 defeats Karnataka's Act, every Indian state contemplating a platform-work levy loses its instrument at once and the question returns to Delhi. If the state wins, the levy becomes a template that state legislatures can copy without waiting for Delhi. Reports conflict on when the petitions are next listed, and the court's own portal did not respond, so no forward date is stated here.
