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Section 29: Night shifts

The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 (Act No. 37 of 2020) • Official Statutory Text & Plain English Practice Guide

Statutory Mandate
Chapter VI: Hours of Work and Annual Leave with Wages
Competent Labour Forum
Act No. 37 of 2020
Section 28 All 143 Sections of OSH Code, 2020 Section 30

Legal Commentary & Landmark Judgments: Section 29

Section 29 of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 strictly prohibits the operation of an establishment through multiple overlapping shifts or relays where more than one relay of workers is engaged in work of the same kind at the same time, preventing managerial evasion of statutory working hour and overtime limits.

  • Absolute Statutory Ban on Overlapping Relays: Prohibits employers from organizing shifts in a manner where multiple relays of workers perform work of the same kind simultaneously in the same department or shop floor.
  • Prevention of Exploitative Temporal Arbitrage: Designed to eliminate fraudulent managerial practices where overlapping relays are deployed to blur individual worker shifts, disguise unpaid overtime, and frustrate inspectorate headcount audits.
  • Stringent Exemption Framework via Written Order: Overlapping shift operations are permissible only if the employer secures a prior written exemption from the Chief Inspector-cum-Facilitator upon demonstrating technical manufacturing necessity and providing compensatory safeguards.
Key Landmark Precedents:
  • State of Gujarat v. Jethalal Ghelabhai Patel AIR 1964 SC 779: Supreme Court affirmed that statutory shift rules exist to prevent confusion of responsibilities and eliminate managerial practices designed to evade working hour limitations.
  • Delhi Cloth & General Mills Co. Ltd. v. Its Workmen AIR 1967 SC 1588: Supreme Court held that employers cannot introduce overlapping shift systems that disrupt standard rest intervals or obscure the true hours worked by individual employees.
Courtroom Practice & Strategic Litigation Guidance:

Industrial engineers designing production rosters must ensure each shift has clearly demarcated start and stop times (e.g., Shift 1: 06:00–14:30; Shift 2: 14:30–23:00; Shift 3: 23:00–06:00). Staggering worker arrival times within the same manufacturing line is illegal under Section 29 unless formal written exemption is obtained in advance from the Chief Inspector.

Section 28 All 143 Sections of OSH Code, 2020 Section 30