WHY A CAP ON WORK-HOURS GETS CONGEALED INTO A CONSTITUTIONAL THRESHOLD Yash Sinha

Abstract

The act of relaxing the limit on factory working-hours by a few Indian states in 2020 was akin to a constitutional flyby. Furthermore, there was no parallel increment in minimum wages. Both phenomena involve a dilution of statutes under Part IV of the Constitution of India. Both are, however, fortuitously barred by three unique constitutional prohibitions. First of these is proposed to be a ‘constitutional transference’. Upon fulfilment, certain positive obligations espoused under Part IV come under the aegis of negative obligations imposed on the State in Part III. Diminishing the former then impermissibly violates Part III. Both work hours and minimum wages are obligations of this mutable nature. Secondly and alternatively, the emerging principle of non-retrogression completely bars putting workers in inferior circumstances than they currently suffer. In any case, there exists another two-pronged bar, wholly rooted in concurrentfederalism. Both, alternatively, disfavour the acts of Indian states in this instance. The ‘exhaustive field’ test prioritises a law from that unit of federation which evinces the intention to govern the concerned legislative subject. Whereas, the ‘denial of rights’ test disables the concurrent powers when one unit of the federation attempts to denature laws enacted by its complement. Hence, the states’ objective to increase working hours without the guarantee of a proportionate recompense, was most definitively under a constitutional interdict.