Object and Salient Features of the Code

The Central Government issued the notification on 21 November 2025. It is S.O. 5319(E), published in the Gazette of India, Extraordinary, Part II, section 3(ii). Three other notifications of the same date, S.O. 5320(E), S.O. 5321(E) and S.O. 5322(E), brought the other three Codes into force on the same day.

Three dates, not one. Because section 1(3) permits it, this Code came into force in three instalments, and a student who says "the Code commenced on 21 November 2025" is right about almost all of it but should know the exceptions:

A corrigendum of 19 December 2025 was issued because S.O. 5319(E) had left the picture ambiguous. Read on its own, S.O. 5319(E) commences "items 1 and 2 and items 4 to 9" of section 164(1) and says nothing about item 3, which reads as though the Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1952 had escaped repeal. It had not. Item 3 had already been brought into force on 3 May 2023. The corrigendum says so. The whole of section 164(1) is in force and all nine Acts are repealed.

What the Code repealed

Section 164(1) of the Code repeals nine enactments. Learn this list. It is the sort of thing that is asked as a short note, and it is also the reason so much of what a student will read elsewhere on this subject is now out of date.

A word about what "repealed" does and does not mean. When an Act is repealed it ceases to be law. It does not mean that everything done under it disappears. Section 164(2)(a) provides that anything done or any action taken under the repealed Acts, including any rule, regulation, notification, scheme, appointment, order or direction, is deemed to have been done under the corresponding provision of this Code and remains in force so far as it is not contrary to the Code, until it is itself repealed.

Section 164(2)(b) is narrower and carries a time limit. It keeps the Employees' Provident Funds Scheme 1952, the Employees' Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme 1976, the Employees' Pension Scheme 1995, the Tribunal (Procedure) Rules 1997 and the schemes, rules and regulations made under the Employees' State Insurance Act 1948 in force, so far as they are not inconsistent with the Code, for a period of one year from the date of commencement of this Code.

Do not confuse the two. Neither provision revives a repealed Act. Both keep subordinate instruments working while the new ones are made under the Code. Saying "the Provident Funds Act still applies" is wrong; saying "the Provident Fund Scheme framed under it continues for the time being" is right.

Section 164(3) then applies section 6 of the General Clauses Act 1897, which is the general law on the effect of repeals. Its practical effect is that a right accrued, a liability incurred or a proceeding begun under a repealed Act is not destroyed by the repeal.

The salient features

This is the part most likely to be set as a short note, and the safest way to answer is to organise it around what the Code actually changed.

1. One Act in place of nine. The Code has 164 sections in fourteen Chapters and seven Schedules. Chapter I is preliminary, Chapter II sets up the organisations, Chapters III to IX carry the seven benefits, and Chapters X to XIV carry money, enforcement, offences, employment information and the miscellaneous provisions.

2. One definition of wages for all four Codes. Section 2(88) defines "wages" in terms that are identical in the Code on Wages, the Industrial Relations Code and the OSH Code. It has an inclusive part, an excluded list of eleven items, and a proviso capping the excluded items at one half of all remuneration. Under the old law each Act defined its own wage base and litigation followed. This is taken up in [Definitions under the Social Security Code].

3. Coverage extended beyond the organised sector. Chapter IX brings unorganised workers, and for the first time in Indian law gig workers and platform workers, within a statutory social security framework. Section 2(35) and section 2(61) define them. This is the Code's genuine novelty and it is dealt with in the gig and platform workers chapter of Module II.

4. Aadhaar based registration. Section 142 allows an employee or worker to be required to establish identity through the Aadhaar number for the purpose of registering, receiving benefits, or withdrawing from a fund. It is the provision that has been in force longest, since 3 May 2021.

5. A Social Security Fund. Section 141 provides for a Social Security Fund for the welfare of unorganised workers, gig workers and platform workers, into which amounts including penalties recovered under the Code are credited.

6. Aggregator contributions. Section 114(4) allows a scheme for gig and platform workers to be funded partly by contributions from aggregators, at a rate between one and two per cent of turnover, subject to a cap of five per cent of the amount paid to those workers. Nothing like this existed before.

7. Fixed term employment gets gratuity without the five year wait. Section 53(1)(d) read with its second proviso entitles a fixed term employee to gratuity on the expiry of the term, and expressly removes the requirement of five years' continuous service. See [Gratuity: Entitlement and Continuous Service].

8. Inspector-cum-Facilitator in place of the Inspector. Section 122 renames and re-conceives the enforcement officer, whose duties now include advising employers on compliance as well as inspecting them. Section 137 requires that an employer be given an opportunity to comply before prosecution for most offences.

9. Common registration and one set of records. Section 3 provides for electronic registration of establishments and section 123 for maintenance of records and returns in the prescribed manner, in place of the separate registers each old Act required.

How the Code is arranged

A student who knows the shape of the Code can find anything in it. The order below is the order of the sections, and it is also the order of this book.

MU's syllabus splits this Code across two modules and the split falls between Chapter VI and Chapter VII. Module I is Chapters I to VI. Module II is Chapter VII onwards. The split is the syllabus's, not the Code's.

Application: who the Code covers

Section 1(2) extends the Code to the whole of India. But the Code does not apply to every establishment in the same way, and this is where students lose marks by over generalising.

Section 1(4) makes the applicability of the Chapters listed in the First Schedule depend on what column (3) of that Schedule says for each one. Read that column carefully: it is not a table of numbers. Some rows give a headcount, some name a kind of establishment and give no number, and some do both. Students who memorise "ten or more" as the general rule get Chapters V, VI and VIII wrong.

Four further sub-sections widen this. Section 1(5) lets the Central Provident Fund Commissioner apply Chapter III to a smaller establishment where the employer and a majority of the employees agree, and lets them come out again on the same footing. Section 1(7) does the same for Chapter IV through the Director General of the Corporation. Section 1(6) lets the Central Government apply the Code to any establishment employing not less than a notified number of persons, after giving at least two months' notice of its intention.

Section 1(8) is the one to remember, because it is the sticky one. Notwithstanding section 1(4), an establishment to which any Chapter applies at the first instance shall continue to be governed by it thereafter, even if the number of employees at any subsequent time falls below the threshold in the First Schedule for that Chapter.

So coverage is a one way door. An establishment which once crossed the line stays covered when it shrinks back below it. A student who answers a problem by counting today's headcount alone, without asking whether the Chapter ever applied, gets it wrong.

A worked example

Meera runs a garment unit in Bhiwandi with fourteen workers on the rolls, stitching on powered machines. She wants to know which parts of the Code bind her on 1 January 2027.

Step 1. Is the Code in force? Yes. It commenced on 21 November 2025 under S.O. 5319(E), except for the provisions already in force from 2021 and 2023.

Step 2. What kind of establishment is it? This has to be settled first, because three rows of the First Schedule turn on it rather than on a headcount. Section 2(32)(a) defines a factory as premises where ten or more employees work and a manufacturing process is carried on with the aid of power. Meera has fourteen and uses power. Her unit is a factory. Had she stitched by hand, clause (b) would have required twenty, and with fourteen hand workers she would not have had a factory at all.

Step 3. Chapter III, provident fund? No. That row of the First Schedule does set a number, twenty or more employees, and Meera has fourteen. But note section 1(5): if she and a majority of her fourteen agree, the Central Provident Fund Commissioner may apply Chapter III to her unit by notification.

Step 4. Chapter IV, employees' state insurance? Yes. That row sets ten or more persons, and a garment unit is not a seasonal factory.

Step 5. Chapter V, gratuity? Yes, and note why. Clause (a) of that row covers every factory outright, with no number attached. Meera is covered because her unit is a factory under step 2, not because she has more than ten employees. The ten figure in clause (b) governs shops and other establishments, which hers is not.

Step 6. Chapter VI, maternity benefit? Yes, and for the same reason: clause (a) of that row covers every establishment being a factory, mine or plantation, with no headcount.

Step 7. Chapter VII, employees' compensation? For her employees covered by Chapter IV, no. That row applies Chapter VII, subject to the Second Schedule, to the employers and employees to whom Chapter IV does not apply, because those under Chapter IV are already insured. This is the point students most often miss.

Step 8. Does the old law help her? No. The Employees' State Insurance Act 1948, the Payment of Gratuity Act 1972 and the Maternity Benefit Act 1961 were all repealed on 21 November 2025 by section 164(1). A compliance manual written on those Acts is a historical document.

What this does NOT mean

It does not mean the old case law is worthless. Where the Code carries forward the same words, decisions on the repealed Act still explain what those words mean. Where the Code changes the words, they do not. Every case in this book states which statute it was decided under, and why it survives, for exactly this reason.

It does not mean the Code is fully operational in every practical sense. The Code is in force, but rules and schemes under it are made separately by the Central and State Governments, and section 164(2) keeps the old subordinate instruments alive in the meantime. In an exam, the Code is the law. In an office, the rules are still arriving.

It does not mean that "Code" implies a mere compilation. A consolidating Act reproduces existing law in one place; an amending Act changes it. Section 164's long title describes this as an Act "to amend and consolidate", and it does both. Do not describe it as a mere restatement.

Limits and criticism

The Code has been criticised on four grounds worth knowing, because a good answer on "salient features" that also states the criticism reads as though the student has thought about it.

The thresholds survive. Chapter III still needs twenty employees and most of the rest still need ten. A very large part of the workforce is employed in units below those numbers and remains outside the mandatory chapters, reachable only through the schemes in Chapter IX.

Chapter IX is enabling, not conferring. Sections 109 and 114 empower the appropriate Government to frame schemes. Until a scheme is framed and funded, an unorganised or gig worker has a place in the statute rather than a benefit in hand.

Much is left to delegated legislation. The Code repeatedly says "as may be prescribed", and the wage ceiling in section 2(89), the maximum gratuity in section 53(3) and the rate of contribution are all to be notified rather than fixed in the Code.

The definitions of employee, worker and wages are common but not identical in effect. Different Chapters use "employee" and "worker" differently, and the aggregator provisions use a third vocabulary again, so the promised simplification is real but partial.

Quick revision

• The Code on Social Security 2020 is Act 36 of 2020. Assent 28 September 2020. Commenced 21 November 2025 by S.O. 5319(E), with section 142 from 3 May 2021 and the pension provisions from 3 May 2023.
• It extends to the whole of India: section 1(2).
• Section 1(3) allows different dates for different provisions, which is why there are three commencement dates.
• 164 sections, 14 Chapters, 7 Schedules.
• Section 164(1) repeals nine Acts. Section 164(2)(a) saves things done under them; section 164(2)(b) saves the EPF, EDLI, EPS and ESI schemes for one year from commencement; section 164(3) applies section 6 of the General Clauses Act 1897.
• Section 1(8): coverage is sticky. Once a Chapter applies, it keeps applying even if the headcount later falls below the threshold.
• Applicability is in the First Schedule, and it is not a table of numbers. Twenty or more for Chapter III. Ten or more for Chapter IV. Chapters V and VI cover a factory, mine or plantation with no headcount, and use ten only for shops and other establishments. Chapter VII covers those to whom Chapter IV does not apply. Chapter VIII states no number at all.
• Salient features to name: one Act for nine, one definition of wages, gig and platform workers covered, Aadhaar, Social Security Fund, aggregator contributions, gratuity for fixed term employees, Inspector-cum-Facilitator.

Test yourself

1. The Code received assent on 28 September 2020. Was it law in 2023? Almost entirely no. Assent is not commencement. Section 1(3) requires a notification, and the general notification came only on 21 November 2025. The exceptions are section 142, in force from 3 May 2021, and the Employees' Pension Scheme provisions, in force from 3 May 2023.

2. Name the nine Acts repealed by section 164(1). Employee's Compensation Act 1923; Employees' State Insurance Act 1948; Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1952; Employment Exchanges (Compulsory Notification of Vacancies) Act 1959; Maternity Benefit Act 1961; Payment of Gratuity Act 1972; Cine-Workers Welfare Fund Act 1981; Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Cess Act 1996; Unorganised Workers' Social Security Act 2008.

3. An employer says the Employees' Provident Funds Scheme 1952 is dead because its parent Act is repealed. Is he right? No. Section 164(2)(b) expressly keeps the Scheme in force, so far as it is not inconsistent with the Code, for one year from the date of commencement. The parent Act is repealed; the Scheme is preserved for that period.

4. An establishment has twelve employees. Does Chapter III apply? Not automatically. The First Schedule sets the provident fund threshold at twenty. But under section 1(5), if the employer and a majority of the employees agree, the Central Provident Fund Commissioner may apply Chapter III by notification.

5. Distinguish assent from commencement in one sentence each. Assent is the President's approval, which completes the enactment of a Bill into an Act. Commencement is the date from which the Act, or a specified provision of it, has legal effect, fixed here by notification under section 1(3).

6. Why does it matter, for this paper, that the Code commenced on 21 November 2025? Because the whole of Modules I and II is now live law rather than a proposed reform, and because every one of the nine Acts a student may have been taught instead stands repealed from that date.