Allahabad HC issues notice in PIL challenging UP Govt notification relaxing labour laws on working hours, rest time, overtime etc:

The Bench led by Chief Justice Govind Mathur and Justice Siddhartha Verma
PUBLIC INTEREST LITIGATION (PIL) No. – 579 of 2020
Case title: Uttar Pradesh Worker Front vs. Union Of India And Another

The Allahabad High Court on Thursday issued notice to Uttar Pradesh Government PIL challenging move to relax certain labour law rules and regulations, working hours, rest periods and overtime.Whereas due to pandemic of Covid-19 Government of India has declared lockdown and measures to fight against the pandemic resulting occurrence of internal disturbance amounting to public emergency in the entire country including State of Uttar Pradesh. The May 8 notification rules and regulations.

The exercise of the powers conferred by Section 5 of the Factories Act, 1948 the factories registered under the Factories Act, 1948 shall be exempted from various provisions relating to weekly hours, daily hours, overtime, intervals for rest, etc. of adult workers under section 51, section 54, section 55, section 56 and section 59 with the following conditions from 20th April till 19th July 2020:

1. Not more than 8-12 hours in any day and 72 hours in any week No adult worker shall be allowed or required to work in a factory.

2. The periods of work of adult workers in a factory. Each day shall be fixed that no period shall exceed 6 hours, and that no worker shall work for more than 6 hours before he has had an interval for at least half an hour.

3. Wages shall be in proportion of the existing wages. For example: If wages for 8 hours are 80 Rs than proportionate wages for twelve hours will be 120 Rs

The writ petition be listed on 18th May, 2020 through Video-conferencing.

By Muskan chauhan of Law college dehradun