Supreme Court ruling threatens worker protections, Congress warns

The opposition Congress party on Saturday expressed grave concern over a Supreme Court ruling that restricts how a foundational 1978 definition of 'industry' applies to litigation under the newly enacted Industrial Relations Code of 2020. The party said the decision risks eroding protections that have long shielded India's workforce from exploitation.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh stated that the Modi government's 2020 Industrial Relations Code already "significantly weakens essential safeguards for our workers." He said the Supreme Court's recent judgment in State of Uttar Pradesh versus Jai Bir Singh has essentially reformulated the legal standard established nearly five decades ago in the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board versus A Rajappa case, a watershed moment in Indian labor law.

The interpretation of what constitutes an "industry" carries profound legal implications, determining who qualifies as a workman entitled to various statutory protections and benefits. A narrow reading of this term could exclude numerous categories of workers from labor law protections, the Congress argued. The party warned that any narrowing or distancing of the new code from the broad definition established in the 1978 ruling threatens to compromise worker safeguards developed through decades of jurisprudence.