HC Asks Why ESMA Is Not Invoked Against Delhi Bus Drivers; Bank Unions Call Three-Day Strike

The news

New Delhi. In the second week of a strike by contractual bus drivers, at least 37 drivers at the Delhi Transport Corporation’s (DTC) Wazirabad depot were issued show-cause notices on Wednesday, September 23, for allegedly obstructing bus operations between September 16 and 22, according to the depot manager, The Hindu reports. A show-cause notice asks an employee to explain why disciplinary action should not follow; the drivers must reply within 24 hours or face an internal inquiry and an ex parte decision, one taken without hearing them. Eight drivers have been blacklisted. The strike began on September 15 for better pay, paid leave and social security; the drivers, employed by seven private companies that operate Delhi’s cluster buses, earn ₹862 a day with no paid leave or social security net. The DTC Karamchari Ekta Union has called a full strike of all contractual employees on September 28; DTC has made attendance compulsory. Police have detained hundreds of drivers after FIRs over alleged vandalism, which the drivers deny. A Delhi High Court Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia sought the Delhi government’s reply on why the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA), a law that lets government ban strikes in notified essential services, has not been invoked, and asked it to ensure DTC buses keep plying. Delhi Metro added eight to 10 trains and 20 to 50 daily trips from September 16 to 22. Separately, the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), which The Hindu says claims to represent 90% of the banking workforce, has called a nationwide strike from September 28 to 30, primarily for a five-day banking week; the Finance Ministry said public sector and regional rural banks will function normally on Sunday, September 27, with RBI approval for all branches, offices and currency chests to stay open. The EPFO wage-ceiling rise from ₹15,000 to ₹25,000 a month was carded on September 18-19; new is the case made in ET by Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran and Shruti Singh. Because people prefer a smaller reward sooner to a larger one later — ‘hyperbolic discounting’ — payroll-deducted saving works where willpower fails. For a worker earning ₹22,000, the employer’s 12% contribution is ₹2,640 a month, ₹31,680 a year, or ₹6,33,600 for 20 such workers, but coverage also helps attract and retain workers, they argue. The syllabus link is GS3 on employment and GS2 on rights.

Static syllabus linkage

1. The Constitution protects the right to form unions, not a right to strike. Article 19(1)(c) guarantees the right to form associations or unions, subject to reasonable restrictions under Article 19(4). In All India Bank Employees’ Association v. National Industrial Tribunal (1962), the Supreme Court held that this right does not carry with it a guaranteed right to strike or to bargain collectively. In Kameshwar Prasad v. State of Bihar (1962), it struck down a ban on demonstrations by government servants but upheld the ban on strikes. In T.K. Rangarajan v. Government of Tamil Nadu (2003), which arose from the dismissal of striking State employees under Tamil Nadu’s Essential Services Maintenance Act of 2002, the Court held that government employees have no fundamental, statutory or equitable right to strike.
2. ESMA turns a strike in a notified service into an offence. Parliament enacted Essential Services Maintenance Acts in 1968 and 1981, several States have their own, such as Tamil Nadu (2002), Karnataka (2013) and Maharashtra (2023), and the Essential Defence Services Act, 2021 covers defence production units. The common design is that the government declares a service essential — typically transport, power, water, health, posts or communications — and issues an order prohibiting strikes in it for a specified period. A strike after such an order is illegal, and those who take part in it, instigate it or finance it face arrest, prosecution and disciplinary action. Because it suspends workers’ main bargaining weapon, an ESMA order is normally time-bound and is itself open to judicial review.
3. The Industrial Relations Code extends strike-notice rules to every industrial establishment. The four labour codes — on wages (2019), and on industrial relations, social security, and occupational safety, health and working conditions (all 2020) — were made effective from November 21, 2025, consolidating 29 central labour laws, per a PIB release. Under the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, no worker may strike without giving notice within 60 days before striking, within 14 days of giving notice, during conciliation proceedings and seven days after them, or during proceedings before a tribunal and 60 days after them. Under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, which the Code replaced, such notice rules applied only to public utility services; the Code applies them to all industrial establishments. It also treats concerted casual leave by 50% or more of the workers on a given day as a strike.
4. Contract workers and EPF coverage now sit inside the labour codes. The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 has been subsumed in the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020, and a PIB release says principal employers will provide health and social security benefits to contract workers. In Steel Authority of India v. National Union Water Front Workers (2001), a Constitution Bench held that abolition of contract labour does not automatically make contract workers regular employees of the principal employer. The Code on Social Security, 2020 subsumes nine laws, including the Employees’ Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952, under which the EPF, the Employees’ Pension Scheme, 1995 and the Employees’ Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme, 1976 run. Of the employer’s 12% contribution, 8.33% of wages up to the ceiling goes to the pension scheme and the rest to the worker’s provident fund account.

Why UPSC loves this

1. GS2 and GS3 meet in the right to strike. The syllabus covers fundamental rights in GS2 and employment and labour reforms in GS3. Mains questions on the labour codes typically ask whether they balance flexibility for employers with protection for workers; the Delhi strike, the bank strike call and the EPF ceiling together make a three-part illustration of that balance.
2. Essential services are a GS4 case-study staple. Ethics case studies often place a candidate between striking workers and a public that depends on them. The Delhi dispute — ₹862 a day, blacklisting, FIRs and a High Court asking about ESMA — is the template: fairness to workers, continuity of service and restraint in using coercive power.
3. Behavioural economics has entered the official vocabulary. The Economic Survey 2018-19 devoted a chapter to behavioural economics and the ‘nudge’, and the CEA’s op-ed extends that logic to compulsory saving. Terms such as hyperbolic discounting, default options and present bias are now fair game in GS3 answers and in the Essay paper.

Analysis

1. The Delhi dispute is a contracting problem the State created, not only a law-and-order problem. The buses are public, the service is essential and the routes are planned by the government, yet the drivers are employed by seven private companies at ₹862 a day without paid leave or social security. At 26 working days, that is about ₹22,400 a month — almost exactly the CEA’s example of a worker now brought under mandatory EPF by the higher ceiling. The State has outsourced employment but not responsibility: as principal employer under the labour codes, it must see that contractors extend health and social security benefits. Invoking ESMA would restore buses but leave the cause untouched. The counter-view is that commuters — daily wagers, domestic workers and students — should not bear the cost of a wage dispute, and that vandalism is a crime whatever the grievance.
2. ESMA is a blunt instrument, and using it would signal that bargaining has failed. The High Court asked why ESMA has not been invoked; it did not order its use. To compel contract workers of private operators, the government must first declare their work essential, which in turn strengthens their claim that essential work deserves decent terms. In People’s Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of India (1982), the Supreme Court held that labour paid less than the minimum wage amounts to forced labour under Article 23, so a government that compels work must also be sure the pay is lawful. The better sequence is conciliation under the Industrial Relations Code, an interim settlement with the operators on leave and social security enrolment, and ESMA only if violence or a total shutdown persists.
3. The bank strike shows mitigation replacing confrontation. The government’s response to the UFBU call was not ESMA but an extra working Sunday, with RBI approval for branches, ATM-linked branches and currency chests to stay open. Digital payments have also reduced a bank strike’s bite, since UPI, cards and net banking continue; the main losers are those who depend on branches, such as pensioners and cash-using small traders. The union’s central demand, a five-day banking week, concerns working conditions and is the kind of issue best settled in the industry-level negotiations between unions and the Indian Banks’ Association. The counter-view is that three days without branch services still harm rural customers most, so mitigation should include priority for pension and benefit withdrawals.
4. The CEA’s case is right about workers and incomplete about employers. Hyperbolic discounting explains why voluntary saving fails, and payroll deduction is the proven remedy: money set aside before it reaches the worker is money not spent. The employer arithmetic is real too — ₹2,640 a month for a ₹22,000 worker, ₹6,33,600 a year for 20 such workers — and for a thin-margin small firm it can decide whether a job is created formally at all. The CEA’s answer, that coverage signals quality and improves retention, holds for skilled workers in competitive labour markets, less so for low-wage work where employers hold the bargaining power. Firms may also try to shift pay into allowances; the labour codes’ uniform definition of wages, which adds back allowances exceeding half of total remuneration, limits that escape route.
5. A higher ceiling helps only workers who are actually on a payroll. The 51 lakh workers newly brought under mandatory coverage are employees of establishments already within EPFO’s net whose wages lie above the old ceiling. The Delhi drivers show the harder frontier: contract workers of private operators with no social security net at all. For them the binding constraint is not the ceiling but enforcement against contractors, which provident fund law addresses by holding the principal employer liable for contract workers’ contributions and letting it recover them from the contractor. The trampoline the CEA describes needs springs at the bottom as well as the top, so audits of contractors in publicly funded services should come before the next increase in the ceiling.

Administrator's brainstorm