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Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 · Chapter VA: Lay-Off and Retrenchment

Section 25E: Workmen not entitled to compensation in certain cases

The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 was repealed and replaced by the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 from 21 November 2025. It still applies to matters and proceedings from before that date, as the repealing law provides.

In plain words

A laid-off workman gets no lay-off compensation in certain cases.

  • If they refuse suitable alternative work, needing no special skill, in the same establishment or another of the employer's establishments in the same town or village or within five miles, at their normal wages.
  • If they do not report for work at the appointed time at least once a day.
  • If the lay-off is caused by a strike or go-slow by workmen in another part of the establishment.

A simplified explanation, prepared with AI assistance from the official text below and checked automatically against it for numbers and cross-references. The official text is the law and prevails over this summary. Not legal advice.

Official text

No compensation shall be paid to a workman who has been laid-off—

(i) if he refuses to accept any alternative employment in the same establishment from which he has been laid-off, or in any other establishment belonging to the same employer situate in the same town or village or situate within a radius of five miles from the establishment to which he belongs, if, in the opinion of the employer, such alternative employment does not call for any special skill or

previous experience and can be done by the workman, provided that the wages which would normally have been paid to the workman are offered for the alternative employment also;

(ii) if he does not present himself for work at the establishment at the appointed time during normal working hours at least once a day;

(iii) if such laying-off is due to a strike or slowing-down of production on the part of workmen in another part of the establishment.

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 25E