VoxJuris
Home › Acts › Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 › Chapter V › Section 21

Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 · Chapter V: Welfare and Health of Contract Labour

Section 21: Responsibility for payment of wages

The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 was repealed and replaced by the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 from 21 November 2025. It still applies to matters and proceedings from before that date, as the repealing law provides.

(1) A contractor shall be responsible for payment of wages to each worker employed by him as contract labour and such wages shall be paid before the expiry of such period as may be prescribed.

(2) Every principal employer shall nominate a representative duly authorised by him to be present at the time of disbursement of wages by the contractor and it shall be the duty of such representative to certify the amounts paid as wages in such manner as may be prescribed.

(3) It shall be the duty of the contractor to ensure the disbursement of wages in the presence of the authorised representative of the principal employer.

(4) In case the contractor fails to make payment of wages within the prescribed period or makes short payment, then the principal employer shall be liable to make payment of wages in full or the unpaid balance due, as the case may be, to the contract labour employed by the contractor and recover the amount so paid from the contractor either by deduction from any amount payable to the contractor under any contract or as a debt payable by the contractor.

Source: India Code (Legislative Department), the text of the Act as it stood before its repeal. Words in square brackets [ ] were inserted or substituted by later amending Acts, and *** marks words omitted by an amendment. The amendment footnotes are not reproduced here. Official text on India Code.

Supreme Court judgments citing the section 21