Time limits in a employment matter

Wage claim — three-year window under the Code on Wages

Section 45(6) of the Code on Wages, 2019 allows an application for a wage claim to be made to the authority appointed under Section 45(1) within three years of the date on which the claim arises, and the proviso to that sub-section lets the authority entertain a later application on sufficient cause being shown.

Individual grievance — one-year window before the Grievance Redressal Committee

Section 4(5) of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 gives an aggrieved worker one year from the date the cause of action arises to apply to the Grievance Redressal Committee, which Section 4(1) requires of every industrial establishment employing twenty or more workers.

Industrial dispute — two-year bar on conciliation

Section 53(1) of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 bars a conciliation officer from holding conciliation proceedings in an industrial dispute more than two years after the date on which the dispute arose. Section 4(9) of that Code treats a dispute over the discharge, dismissal, retrenchment or other termination of an individual worker as an industrial dispute in its own right.

Grievance Redressal Committee — sixty days to apply for conciliation

Section 4(8) of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 allows a worker who is aggrieved by the decision of the Grievance Redressal Committee, or whose grievance that Committee did not resolve inside the period Section 4(6) allows it, sixty days to file an application for conciliation of that grievance with the conciliation officer through the Trade Union of which the worker is a member. The sub-section runs those sixty days from the date of the decision or from the day the Section 4(6) period expires, as the case may be, and only the date of a decision is recorded here.

Industrial dispute — ninety days to apply to the Tribunal

Section 53(6) of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 allows any concerned party to make an application in the prescribed form to the Tribunal, in the matters not settled by the conciliation officer under that section, within ninety days from the date on which the report under Section 53(4) is received by that party.

Workplace harassment — three months to complain to the Committee

Section 9(1) of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 allows an aggrieved woman to make a complaint in writing to the Internal Committee, or to the Local Committee where no Internal Committee is constituted, within three months of the date of the incident, and within three months of the last incident where there was a series of them. The second proviso to that sub-section allows the Committee to extend that period by up to three further months, for reasons recorded in writing, where it is satisfied that the circumstances prevented the complaint being made in time; that extension is the Committee's to give and is not counted in the date here.

Whether a period has begun, and when it ends

Each period above runs from an event, and the date of that event is a fact about one matter rather than something this guide can state. Whether a period has begun, whether it has ended, and whether anything stops or extends it are questions an advocate answers on the papers in a particular case.

The documents these periods attach to

• Claim application under Section 45 of the Code on Wages, 2019 — The period in Section 45(6) is counted from the date on which the claim arises — for unpaid wages, the day the wages fell due — and the proviso allows a later application on sufficient cause.

Related guides

• Claim application under Section 45 of the Code on Wages, 2019