Engaging Contract Labour: Learnings from Landmark Judgements

2021 ◽  
pp. 0258042X2110261
Author(s):  
Subir Bikas Mitra ◽  
Piyali Ghosh

Despite debates on its hiring, contract labour is a growing form of employment in India. Establishments usually maintain a workforce composition of both regular workers and contract labour for optimizing their available resources and ensuring financial prudence. However, in the process, they often get embroiled in compliance issues related to regularization and ‘equal pay for equal work’ in the context of contract labour. In this article, we have explored the different judicial interpretations of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, on contract labour. For this, we have referred to the landmark judgements passed by the Supreme Court of India on the deployment and regularization of contract labour, and also their entitlement to equal pay for equal work. A scrutiny of these judgements directs us to advise establishments to avoid engaging contract labour in their core and perennial activities. Considering the statutory provisions and the possible legal complications, we have recommended some measures to establishments to mitigate the underlying risks in deploying contract labour alongside regular workforce in similar kinds of jobs or activities. We propose that the legislative framework grants flexibility to industries to generate employment to contract labour, without compromising on the rights of these workers.

2021 ◽  
pp. 2455328X2110477
Author(s):  
Asang Wankhede

This article problematizes the definitional discourse of manual scavenging in Indian legislative interven-tions and its judicial treatment by the Supreme Court of India. It assesses the evolution of the definition of manual scavenging and the judicial treatment of it to cull out the insufficiency of legal doctrines and judicial interpretations in its elimination. It is argued that the career of legal prohibition of manual scavenging, despite deploying new measures to promote the elimination and rehabilitation, is antithetical to the very objectives of the legislations due to a paradoxical definitional discourse. The paradox is discerned by problema-tizing the condition-based permissibility of manual scavenging, where the usage of protective gear is the excluding criterion for identifying manual scavengers and perpetuates the practice. This condition-based permissibility has been a key burden on the discourse of elimination, as no such measures, it is argued, can mitigate discrimination, humiliation and stigma faced by manual scavengers. After identifying the conditional prohibition of manual scavenging, the article makes normative suggestions towards the adoption of a non-condition–based complete prohibition approach rooted in the understanding of human dignity. This must be complemented with the complete rehabilitation of individuals and complete mechanization of sewage work.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (IV) ◽  
pp. 10-20
Author(s):  
Prashant Bhadu,

The research paper has been started with the concept and meaning of digital evidence. In addition, the principles of the Evidence Act have been explained with amendments with respect to digital evidence. Several judgments of the Supreme Court of India have been cited in the context of admissibility and perplexity of digital evidence. Lastly, the safeguards and procedures to be followed by the Indian judiciary in handling digital/electronic evidence are also mentioned in the research paper.


Water Policy ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 1003-1018
Author(s):  
M. P. Ram Mohan ◽  
Krittika Chavaly

This paper addresses the issue of the Mullaperiyar Dam dispute between Kerala and Tamil Nadu with specific reference to the two judgments delivered by the Supreme Court of India on the matter. This paper attempts to examine the arguments, facts, and the judgment of the Court on each of the primary issues raised during the course of the dispute. The first case was filed by the Mullaperiyar Environmental Protection Forum in 2001, wherein the Court adjudged the case in favour of the respondents, the State of Tamil Nadu. Consequently, due to certain developments, examined in the course of the second case, the State of Tamil Nadu filed a petition before the Supreme Court against Kerala in 2006 seeking relief for the actions on the part of the latter after the judgment in the first case. A Constitution Bench was constituted to adjudicate this case, which re-examined certain issues raised during the first case and conclusively laid down its decision in favour of Tamil Nadu.


2018 ◽  
pp. 126-143
Author(s):  
V.C. Govindaraj

The New York Convention on foreign arbitration, by Article V (1) (e) lays down a procedural norm that an arbitral award, duly rendered, attains finality if, and only if, a domestic court endorses it. This procedural norm was endorsed by the Supreme Court of India in two leading cases. The ratio that the Supreme Court employed in the above-mentioned cases is in accordance with Section 17 of the Indian Arbitration Act, 1940. Such an endorsement by a local court of the forum that was required under Article V (1) (e) of the New York Convention was done away with by the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 under Section 35. The forum for the conduct of arbitration in the country of the applicable law also is not indispensable; and it is for the court exercising jurisdiction to determine, on the basis of balance of convenience, the place for the conduct of arbitration, taking into consideration the local status of the parties, such as that one of the parties cannot afford to go to the country of the applicable law, coupled with the availability of evidence, oral and documentary, at the place where the court is exercising jurisdiction.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 563-590
Author(s):  
Sanjay Jain ◽  
Saranya Mishra

Abstract The Supreme Court of India (SC) pronounced a momentous judgment in Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan in 1997, categorically recognizing the menace of sexual harassment (SH) at workplace and constitutionally rendering it as being in violation of fundamental rights guaranteed by Articles 15, 19, and 21 of the Constitution of India 1950. The Court also provided a mechanism for redressal against SH, which was ultimately reinforced by Parliament with the enactment of Sexual Harassment at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2013 (POSH Act). However, when it comes to allegations of SH against judges in the SC and High Courts by its employees, interns, or lower court judges, the response of the SC has been abysmal to say the least. There is a systematic pattern to suggest foul play and conspiracy in each such allegation, and judges, including even the Chief Justice of India (CJI), have not hesitated to openly indulge in victim-shaming and-blaming. In other words, the court has not been able to uphold its own jurisprudence on sexual harassment, which it expects to be scrupulously adhered to by other organs of the state. It is submitted that in not supporting the cause of victims alleging SH against judges, the other organs of the state are also party to this constitutional decay and serious infraction of fundamental rights. It leads us to ask the question, how can we guard against the guardians?


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