The OSH Code: objectives, scope and key definitions

1. Objectives

The long title describes the Code as an Act “to consolidate and amend the laws regulating the occupational safety, health and working conditions of the persons employed in an establishment”. Before 2020 the subject was spread across separate statutes for factories, mines, docks, plantations, building sites, motor transport, newspapers, cinema, beedi works and contract and migrant labour, each with its own definitions, registers, inspectors and licences. The Code has four aims.

• One set of definitions for “worker”, “employee”, “employer” and “establishment” in place of many.
• One registration of an establishment (section 3), done electronically, with deemed registration if the officer does not act in time.
• One licence for a factory, beedi premises and contract labour, or any combination of them (section 119), issued within 45 days or deemed issued.
• Standards rather than detail in the statute. The Code sets duties; the National Board advises and the Central Government declares safety and health standards (sections 16 and 18).

The constitutional basis is Article 21 (the right to health of workers was read into it in Consumer Education and Research Centre v. Union of India, 1995 INSC 76, (1995) 3 SCC 42) and the Directive Principles in Articles 39(e), 42 and 43.

2. The Acts it replaced

Section 143(1) repeals thirteen Acts: the Factories Act, 1948; Plantations Labour Act, 1951; Mines Act, 1952; the two Working Journalists Acts of 1955 and 1958; Motor Transport Workers Act, 1961; Beedi and Cigar Workers (Conditions of Employment) Act, 1966; Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970; Sales Promotion Employees Act, 1976; Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979; Cine-Workers and Cinema Theatre Workers Act, 1981; Dock Workers (Safety, Health and Welfare) Act, 1986; and the Building and Other Construction Workers (RE&CS) Act, 1996. Section 143(3) saves things done under them, and section 6 of the General Clauses Act, 1897 applies to the repeal.

3. Scope and applicability

• Extent. The whole Code applies to “establishments”, defined with a threshold of ten workers (below).
• Exclusions. Section 1(3): the Code does not apply to offices of the Central and State Governments or to any ship of war. But under the proviso it does apply to contract labour engaged through a contractor in Government offices where the Government is the principal employer.
• Overriding effect. Section 120 gives the Code effect notwithstanding any inconsistent law, award or contract, but more favourable existing benefits continue.
• Exemptions. Section 127 (any establishment by notification, and under sub-section (2) new factories, to create economic activity and employment), section 128 (public emergency, disaster or pandemic, for not more than one year at a time) and section 129 (workshops of educational and research institutions).

4. The definitions examiners ask for

• Adolescent — section 2(1)(a) borrows the meaning in section 2(i) of the Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986: a person who has completed fourteen years but not eighteen. Adult (section 2(1)(b)) is a person who has completed eighteen years. The Code does not define “child”; child labour stays under the 1986 Act, which is still in force.
• Appropriate Government (section 2(1)(d)) — the Central Government for establishments of the Central Government, railways including metro railways, mines, oil fields, major ports, air transport, telecommunication, banking and insurance companies, Central public sector undertakings and their subsidiaries, and contractors working for them; the State Government for a factory, motor transport undertaking, plantation, newspaper establishment, beedi and cigar establishment and every other establishment. The Explanation makes the State Government the appropriate Government for safety and health in every factory situated in the State.
• Employee (section 2(1)(t)) — a person (other than an apprentice under the Apprentices Act, 1961) employed on wages to do any skilled, unskilled, manual, operational, supervisory, managerial, administrative, technical or clerical work, and a person declared an employee by the Government; members of the Armed Forces are excluded.
• Worker (section 2(1)(zzl)) — narrower: it excludes persons employed mainly in a managerial or administrative capacity and supervisors drawing more than Rs 18,000 a month, and expressly includes working journalists and sales promotion employees. Hours of work and leave in Chapter VII are given to “workers”.
• Employer (section 2(1)(u)) — a person who employs one or more employees, directly or through another, and includes the occupier of a factory, the owner, agent or manager of a mine, the person with ultimate control of any other establishment, a contractor, and the legal representative of a deceased employer.
• Establishment (section 2(1)(v)) — a place where any industry, trade, business, manufacturing or occupation is carried on in which ten or more workers are employed; a motor transport undertaking, newspaper establishment, audio-visual production, building or other construction work or plantation with ten or more workers; a factory with ten or more workers for the purpose of registration under Chapter II; and a mine or port where dock work is done, regardless of numbers.
• Factory (section 2(1)(w)) [Factories Act, s. 2(m)] — premises where twenty or more workers work with the aid of power, or forty or more without power, on any day of the preceding twelve months, and a manufacturing process is carried on. The old thresholds were ten and twenty. Mobile units of the armed forces, railway running sheds and hotels, restaurants or eating places are excluded, and a computer unit with no manufacturing process does not make premises a factory.
• Audio-visual worker (section 2(1)(f)) — a person employed, directly or through a contractor, in audio-visual production as an artist (actor, musician, singer, anchor, news reader, dancer, dubbing artist, stunt person) or for any other work, whose remuneration does not exceed the amount the Central Government notifies.
• Building or other construction work (section 2(1)(h)) and building worker (section 2(1)(i)) — construction, repair and demolition of buildings, roads, railways, dams, power lines, towers and pipelines, but not work related to a factory or mine, nor construction of one’s own residence costing up to Rs 50 lakh. A building worker excludes managerial and supervisory staff.
• Contract labour (section 2(1)(m)) [CLRA, s. 2(1)(b)] — a worker hired in or in connection with the work of an establishment by or through a contractor, with or without the knowledge of the principal employer. It includes inter-State migrant workers, but excludes a contractor’s regular employees who enjoy permanent terms, increments and social security.
• Contractor (section 2(1)(n)) — a person who undertakes to produce a given result for the establishment through contract labour (other than mere supply of goods), or who supplies contract labour as mere human resource; it includes a sub-contractor.
• Family (section 2(1)(x)) — the spouse; dependent children, including adopted children, below eighteen; and dependent parents, grandparents, widowed daughter and widowed sister, except those with income above the prescribed limit.

5. Factory, manufacturing process and occupier: the older cases

The cases decided under the Factories Act still explain the Code’s words, since the definitions of “manufacturing process” (section 2(1)(zi)) and “occupier” (section 2(1)(zs)) follow the 1948 Act closely.

• Ardeshir H. Bhiwandiwala v. State of Bombay, 1961 INSC 18, AIR 1962 SC 29. Salt works, where sea water is let into open pans and salt is obtained by evaporation, were held to be a factory. “Premises” covers open land as well as buildings, and converting sea water into salt is a manufacturing process.
• Shankar Balaji Waje v. State of Maharashtra, 1961 INSC 302, AIR 1962 SC 517. Beedi rollers who could come and go as they pleased and were not supervised in how they worked were held not to be “workers”. Control over the manner of work is the test of employment.
• J.K. Industries Ltd. v. Chief Inspector of Factories and Boilers, 1996 INSC 1114, (1996) 6 SCC 665. In a company, only a director can be the occupier; the company cannot nominate a manager or other employee to carry the occupier’s criminal liability. The Code keeps this rule and adds that an independent director cannot be the occupier.

How this is examined

This is new material: the papers set up to January 2026 were framed on the old Acts, so expect the Code’s objectives and definitions to be asked directly from 2026–27. A 10-mark essay would be “Explain the objectives, scope and applicability of the OSH Code, 2020”; begin with the repealed Acts, then section 1(3), then the threshold in the definition of establishment. Short notes are likely on “factory”, “contract labour”, “audio-visual worker” or “appropriate Government”. Always give the old threshold beside the new one; the change from ten to twenty workers is the point examiners look for.