Supreme Court Directs Centre to Establish Monitoring Cell for Child Labour Law Compliance

NEW DELHI — The Supreme Court of India has directed the Centre to establish a special monitoring cell to enforce nationwide compliance with the amended child labour legislation through state enforcement agencies.

A bench comprising Justices SVN Bhatti and NV Anjaria issued the directive to ensure strict implementation of the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016. The court instructed the Ministry of Women and Child Development to issue implementation instructions to enforcement agencies via the chief secretaries of respective states.

The directive emerged during the hearing of a long-standing writ petition originally filed in 2009 by the NGO Health For Millions, represented by advocates Prashant Bhushan and Pranav Sachdeva. The petition had challenged the constitutional validity of a proviso in Section 3 of the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, which previously permitted children to work in hazardous processes such as beedi rolling within family enterprises, as well as in government-aided or government-funded schools.

During the proceedings, the Centre’s counsel submitted to the bench that subsequent legislative changes had substantially addressed the petitioner’s grievances, rendering the original petition unnecessary for further consideration.

The bench noted that while the initial prayers of the petition no longer survived, the primary focus must shift toward giving complete and full effect to the statutory changes introduced by Amendment Act No. 35 of 2016. The 2016 amendment, which came into force on September 1, 2016, overhauled the 1986 statute by imposing a complete ban on child employment and prohibiting the employment of children below the age of 14 across all occupations and processes.

“Keeping in perspective the above brief narrative, we are persuaded not to examine the prayers as made but we take note of the amendment Act No. 35 of 2016 and note that it shall be the responsibility of the respondent(s) to ensure complete and strict compliance with the mandate of the Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, including the amended provisions,” the bench observed.

Under the court’s directives, the newly mandated special cell will continue to monitor the enforcement of the legislation’s provisions to preserve the rights of children and adolescents across the country.