Definitions, Object & Scope - Child Labour (Prohibition And Regulation) Act(1986), Industrial Laws | Industrial Laws - B Com PDF Download

Definition Clause (Section 2)
The Act also provides the definitions of the various concepts in Section 2. They are:

• Appropriate Government means, in relation to an establishment under the control of the Central Government or a railway administration or a major port or a mine or oilfield, the Central Government, and in all other cases, the State Government

• Child means a person who has not completed his fourteenth year of age

• Day means a period of twenty-four hours beginning at midnight

• Establishment includes a shop, commercial establishment, workshop, farm, residential hotel, restaurant, eating house, theatre, or other place of public amusement or entertainment

• Family in relation to an occupier, the individual, wife or husband, as the case may be, of such individual, and their children, brother or sister of such individual

• Occupier in relation to an establishment or a workshop, means the person who has the ultimate control over the affairs of the establishment or the workshop

• Port authority means any authority administering a port

• Prescribed means prescribed under the rules made under Section 18

• Week means a period of seven days beginning at midnight on Saturday night or such other night as may be approved in writing for a particular area by the Inspector

• Workshop means any premises (including the precincts thereof) wherein any industrial process is carried on, but does not include any premises to which the provisions of Section 67 of the Factories Act, 1948, for the time being apply

Aims and Objects, Extent and Commencement

The legislature strongly desired prohibition of child labour and the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 is in itself, ex facie, a bold step towards that goal. As its preamble indicates that it has twin objective: it intended to prohibit the engagement of children in certain employments and to regulate the conditions of work of children in certain other employments where children are allowed to work.[13]

There are a number of Acts that prohibit the employment of children below 14 years and 15 years in certain specified employments, for example, Section 67 of the Factories Act, 1948, Section 45 of the Mines Act, 1952, etc. However, there existed no procedure in any of the law for deciding in which employments or processes the employment of children should be banned. Also there was no law to regulate the working conditions of children in the employments where they were not prohibited to work and consequently were exploited. Thus, the Act was passed with the following aims and objects:

• Ban the employment of children, that is, those who have not completed their fourteenth year of age, in specified occupations and processes

• Lay down a procedure to decide modifications to the Schedule of banned occupations and processes

• Regulate the conditions of work of children in employments where they are not prohibited from working

• Lay down enhanced penalties for employment of children in violation of the provisions of the Act, and other Acts which forbid the employment of children

• To obtain uniformity in the definition of ‘child’ in all the related laws[14]

• To empower the Central Government to constitute Child Labour Technical Advisory Committee to advise the Central Government for the purpose of addition of occupation and processes to the Schedule appended to the Act.[15]

The Act makes it clear that the rights of the child are inalienable and indivisible.[16] Further any person who engages into the child labour practice shall be criminally liable under the Act of 1986 as well as his civil liability to pay compensation arises out of violation of the fundamental rights.[17]

The Act received the President’s assent on December 23, 1986. Section 1 (2) of the Act provides that it extends to the whole of India. It has been provided under Section 1(3) that the provisions of this Act, other than Part III, shall come into force at once and Part III shall come into force on such dates as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette appoint, and different dates may be appointed for different states and different class of establishments.

For instance, in exercise of powers conferred by Section 1 (3), the Central Government in order to regulate the conditions of work of children, issued a notification dated 3^rd August 1987 as corrected by S.O. 69 (E) dated 11.1.1989 to apply the provisions of the Part III of the Act to the establishments where the following processes are carried on in the State/ Union Territories mentioned against them:

• Zari Making and embroidery – Delhi and Uttar Pradesh

• Precious Stone Polishing – Gujarat and Rajasthan

• Slate and Slate pencil manufacturing – Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh[18]