Requirement of factory premises for the manufacture of cosmetics are mentioned in the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945 under

A nationwide lockdown was declared by the Central Government from 24 March 2020 to prevent the spread of the CoVID-19 pandemic. Economic activity came to a grinding halt. The lockdown was extended on several occasions, among them for the second time on 14 April 2020. On 17 April 2020, the Labour and Employment Department of the State of Gujarat issued a notification under Section 5 of the Factories Act to exempt all factories registered under the Act “from various provisions relating to weekly hours, daily hours, intervals for rest etc. for adult workers” under Sections 51, 54, 55 and 56. The stated aim of the notification was to provide “certain relaxations for industrial and commercial activities” from 20 April 2020 till 19 July 2020.

Section 5 of the Factories Act provides that in a public emergency, the State Government can exempt any factory or class or description of factories from all or any of the provisions of the Act, except Section 67. Section 5 is extracted below: “5. Power to exempt during public emergency. — In any case of public emergency the State Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, exempt any factory or class or description of factories from all or any of the provisions of this Act except section 67 for such period and subject to such conditions as it may think fit: Provided that no such notification shall be made for a period exceeding three months at a time. Explanation.—For the purposes of this section ‘public emergency’ means a grave emergency whereby the security of India or of any part of the territory thereof is threatened, whether by war or external aggression or internal disturbance.” (emphasis supplied)

The notification in its relevant part is extracted below:

“... NOW, THEREFORE, in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 5 of the Factories Act, 1948, the ‘Factories Act’ PART B Government of Gujarat hereby directs that all the factories registered under the Factories Act, 1948 shall be exempted from various provisions relating to weekly hours, daily hours, intervals for rest etc. of adult workers under section 51, section 54, and section 55 and section 56 with the following conditions from 20^th April till 19^th July 2020, —

No adult worker shall be allowed or required to work in a factory for more than twelve hours in any day and Seventy Two hours in any week.
The Periods of work of adult workers in a factory each day shall be so fixed that no period shall exceed six hours and that no worker shall work for more than six hours before he has had an interval of rest of at least half an hour.
No Female workers shall be allowed or required to work in a factory between 7:00 PM to 6:00 AM.
Wages shall be in a proportion of the existing wages (e.g. If wages for eight hours are 80 Rupees, then the proportionate wages for twelve hours will be 120 Rupees).

[Extract from judgment of the Supreme Court in Gujarat Mazdoor Sabha v. The State of Gujarat decided on 1 October, 2020, (hereafter ‘GMS’)]

Requirement of factory premises for the manufacture of cosmetics are mentioned in the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945 under:

The Correct Option is C

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