AITUC Statement on the Supreme Court’s Jai Bir Singh Judgment | Aug 21, 2026

All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC)

Press Statement:

21st August 2026

Supreme Court’s Jai Bir Singh Judgment:
Concerns of labour shall Not Be Buried Under Judicial Reformulation

All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) takes serious note of the Constitution Bench judgment of the Supreme Court in State of U.P. v. Jai Bir Singh concerning the definition of “industry” under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.

While the majority has retained the Bangalore Water Supply framework for pending disputes under the repealed Industrial Disputes Act, its decision to reformulate the test, coupled with its refusal to interpret Section 2(p) of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, leaves the most consequential questions concerning workers under the new labour regime unresolved.

AITUC particularly draws attention to the dissenting opinions of Justice B.V. Nagarathna that is qualified with a very strong labour – political insight. Justice Nagarathna rightly questioned the necessity of reopening a settled jurisprudence of nearly five decades, particularly when the Industrial Relations Code has already replaced the Industrial Disputes Act. She also highlighted the significance of privatisation and the consequent vulnerability of workers when public activities are transferred to private hands.

Justice Bagchi even while accepting the maintainability of the reference, rejected the reformulation of the majority. His insistence that the nature of the activity, rather than merely the identity of the institution performing it, must remain central is equally important. His approach is particularly relevant to the new Labour Codes, where statutory exclusions concerning sovereign, charitable, social and philanthropic activities can potentially place large sections of workers outside meaningful industrial-relations

AITUC is deeply concerned that the majority has left these crucial questions to future litigation instead of confronting the implications of the narrower and exclusionary architecture of Section 2(p) of the Industrial Relations Code. The Code’s exclusions relating to sovereign functions and charitable/social/philanthropic institutions require strict and constitutionally compatible interpretation. Governmental activity cannot automatically be equated with sovereign function, nor can the institutional label of a charitable organisation by itself erase the industrial character of the work performed by its employees.

This postponement of a crucial concern is not politically neutral. In an economy increasingly characterised by privatisation, outsourcing, contractualisation and public-private partnerships, shifting the focus from the substance of work to the institutional status of the employer can operate to the disadvantage of labour. This explicitly exposes the class character of the majority bench that is covertly resonating the pro corporate philosophy of the government.

The AITUC therefore views the majority’s approach as reflecting a structural tilt towards institutional and managerial interests over the collective rights and bargaining power of workers. We do not attribute motives to individual judges. But are pained and anguished at the social consequences of a jurisprudence that leaves statutory exclusions unexamined. This cannot be ignored at any cost.

The issue is not whether the judiciary or Parliament openly declares itself "for capital" or "for labour". AITUC is concerned with a more sophisticated and most relevant question whether the legal architecture recognises the structural inequality between those who own, control or administer the means of production and those who must sell their labour to survive

In a constitutional democracy committed to social and economic justice, the employer cannot be permitted to determine the legal status of the workers and whether the worker is entitled to protection under law. This is complete distortion of legal jurisprudence.

The AITUC will oppose any attempt to use the Industrial Relations Code to deprive workers performing essentially similar work of equal industrial protection merely because their employer is a government body, contractor, charitable institution or other excluded entity.

The new Labour Codes cannot be permitted to become instruments for weakening the constitutional commitment to social and economic justice, equality, dignity of labour and freedom of association.

AITUC expresses deep concern over the judiciary’s increasingly visible drift towards a class character that appears insufficiently attentive to the structural inequality between labour and capital. Judicial neutrality should not mean indifference to the material consequences of laws that weaken workers’ collective power. Indian judiciary has played commendable role in the protection of labour rights and social justice and constitutional equality. Now it must not yield to the interests of institutional power and economic privilege.

Amarjeet Kaur
General Secretary AITUC