Inspector-cum-Facilitators: Appointment and Powers

In one line

The appropriate Government appoints Inspector-cum-Facilitators who work to a published web based scheme with randomised selection, and who may enter, inspect, inquire, seize, photograph, take samples, freeze a scene, sensitise employers, and prosecute.

In exam wording: section 34 of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020 empowers the appropriate Government to appoint Inspector-cum-Facilitators and to lay down an inspection scheme providing for web based inspection and randomised selection; section 35 confers fourteen powers on them; and section 36 gives the District Magistrate such powers and duties in respect of mines as the Central Government prescribes.

Why the law has these at all

For the same two reasons as section 122 of the other Code, and one more.

Arbitrariness is met by the inspection scheme in section 34(3), with a unique number for each establishment, each officer and each inspection, and randomised selection of both the establishment and the officer.

That last point is the difference from the other Code and it is worth marking. Section 122(3) of the Social Security Code randomises the establishment. Section 34(3)(ii) here randomises the establishment and the Inspector-cum-Facilitator. Neither the employer nor the officer chooses the other.

Pure punishment is met by the name and by section 35(1)(v), which makes it a power of the officer to supply information and sensitise employers and workers about the Code.

And the third reason is that safety enforcement needs powers ordinary labour enforcement does not. An inspector recovering a contribution needs documents. An inspector investigating a factory that is about to kill somebody needs to take samples of the air, photograph the scene, freeze the premises and, under section 38, stop the work. Section 35 gives him those.

Some words this chapter uses

Web based inspection is an inspection assigned and reported through an online system. Randomised selection means selection by chance rather than by an officer's or an employer's choice. Sensitise means to make aware. Undisturbed, in clause (viii), means left as it is so that evidence is not lost. Dismantle means to take apart. Videograph is a video recording. District Magistrate is the principal executive magistrate of a district.

Section 34: appointment and the inspection scheme

Section 34(1). The appropriate Government may, by notification, appoint Inspector-cum-Facilitators for the purposes of the Code, who exercise the powers conferred on them throughout their respective jurisdiction specified in the notification.

Section 34(2). They shall, apart from their other duties, conduct such inspections as are specified in sub-section (3).

Section 34(3). The appropriate Government may:

• (i) by notification, lay down an inspection scheme providing for generation of web based inspection and calling of information electronically, which shall have provisions to cater to special circumstances for assigning inspection and calling for information besides web based inspections; and
• (ii) by notification under the scheme, provide for the randomised selection of the establishment and of the Inspector-cum-Facilitator for inspection.