EPFO APFC 2023 General Studies · Question 70 of 120

Correct — A, (a) Three days. The provision is section 8 of the Mines Act, 1952, headed Powers of special officer to enter, measure and so forth. It provides that any person in the service of Government duly authorised in this behalf by a special order in writing of the Chief Inspector or of an Inspector may, for the purpose of surveying, levelling or measuring any mine or any output from it, after giving not less than three days' notice to the manager of the mine, enter the mine and carry out that survey, levelling or measurement, at any part of the mine and at any time by day or night. The section also lets the notice be dispensed with where an emergency exists in the opinion of the Chief Inspector or an Inspector, who may then authorise entry without notice by an order in writing. Three details of the section are worth fixing, because questions are built on all of them. The officer is not an Inspector: he is any government servant specially authorised in writing for the purpose, which is why the marginal note calls him a special officer. The notice runs to the manager, the person on whom the Act places day-to-day charge of the mine, rather than to the owner or the agent. And the purpose is limited to surveying, levelling and measuring, which is a technical and non-adversarial exercise. That last point explains why three days is enough. The notice is not a warning that lets a mine put its house in order; it merely gives the manager time to arrange safe access underground and to make a surveyor available. Where the purpose is inspection rather than measurement, the Act gives no notice at all, since section 7 allows an Inspector to enter, inspect and examine a mine at all reasonable times without warning of any kind.

• (b)Five days — The Act fixes three days, not five, and there is no five-day period anywhere in the entry and inspection provisions of the Mines Act, 1952. Five is the kind of number that feels statutory without being so, which is why it appears in option sets of this shape. The way to hold the correct figure is to reason from what the notice is for. Section 8 governs a survey — measuring the workings and the output — and the manager needs only enough warning to make the underground workings safely accessible and to have somebody available to accompany the survey party. A longer period would serve no purpose and would let a mine delay measurement, and the Act's drafting throughout prefers the shortest interval consistent with the duty being performed. Where the statute wants a longer period, as with the notice of commencement of mining operations, it says so in a different section and in different terms.
• (c)Seven days — Seven days is the commonest notice period in ordinary administration, and that familiarity is exactly what makes it the strongest wrong answer here: a candidate who does not know the section will reach for a week. The Mines Act, 1952 does not use a week in section 8. Notice also that the choice between three and seven days is not a matter of degree but of design, because the Act deliberately separates powers that come with notice from powers that come without it. An Inspector's power of entry, inspection and examination under section 7 carries no notice requirement at all, and in an emergency even the special officer's three-day notice may be dispensed with by a written order of the Chief Inspector or an Inspector. Against that background a full week's warning for a survey would be an anomaly in the scheme.
• (d)Fourteen days — This is the longest period offered and the least consistent with the purpose of the section. A fortnight's notice before a government surveyor may enter to measure a mine and its output would give an operator ample time to alter what is to be measured, which would defeat the object of allowing the measurement in the first place; and it would sit oddly beside the Act's provision for dispensing with notice altogether in an emergency. The option tests whether a candidate has any feel for the balance a safety statute strikes between the operator's need for orderly access arrangements and the State's need for unannounced or near-unannounced verification. In this Act that balance is struck at three days for the special officer's survey and at nothing at all for an Inspector's ordinary inspection.

The Mines Act, 1952 is the safety and welfare statute for mines, administered through the Directorate General of Mines Safety under the Ministry of Labour and Employment; the subject falls to the Union under Entry 55 of the Union List, which covers the regulation of labour and safety in mines and oilfields. Its opening chapters build the inspectorate and its powers. Section 5 provides for the appointment of a Chief Inspector of Mines and Inspectors; section 6 sets out their functions; section 7 gives an Inspector the power to enter, inspect and examine a mine at all reasonable times, to examine documents and to hold enquiries; section 8 creates the narrower power exercised by a specially authorised government servant, who may enter for surveying, levelling or measuring after three days' notice to the manager, and without notice in an emergency; and section 9 obliges the owner, agent and manager to afford the inspectorate the facilities it needs. The Act then fixes responsibility on the owner, agent and manager, requires notice of accidents, provides for drinking water, conservancy and first aid, empowers an Inspector to prohibit employment where a mine is dangerous, limits hours of work above and below ground, prohibits the employment of persons below eighteen years, and bars the employment of women below ground. It has since been subsumed into the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020.

The labour law block of this paper likes provisions that carry a number, because a number can be asked without ambiguity and cannot be reasoned to from general principles alone. Days, years, ages, thresholds of employees and percentages of wages are the recurring currency. The candidate's task is therefore partly memorisation, but not entirely: the numbers in a well-drafted statute follow the purpose of the provision, and reconstructing the purpose narrows the field even when recall fails. Here the purpose is a technical survey of a working mine, so the notice period is short; where the Act contemplates a real change of circumstances, such as the opening of a mine, the period is longer; and where surprise is the point, as with an Inspector's power of inspection, there is no notice at all. Reading a set of four periods against the purpose of the section usually eliminates the extremes, which on this item leaves three and five days as the plausible pair and gives a candidate a genuine chance rather than a guess among four. For the officer this examination selects, the habit that matters is citing the section: knowing that this is section 8 of the Mines Act, 1952 is what makes the answer usable outside an examination hall.

• Section 8 of the Mines Act, 1952 allows a person in the service of Government, specially authorised by a written order of the Chief Inspector or an Inspector, to enter a mine for surveying, levelling or measuring the mine or its output after giving not less than three days' notice to the manager.
• The same section permits entry without notice where an emergency exists in the opinion of the Chief Inspector or an Inspector, who may authorise it by an order in writing.
• The special officer under section 8 is not an Inspector; the notice runs to the manager, and the power is confined to surveying, levelling and measuring rather than to inspection or enquiry.
• Section 7 gives an Inspector power to enter, inspect and examine a mine at all reasonable times without any notice requirement, which is the contrast that explains why section 8's notice period is short.
• The Act is administered by the Directorate General of Mines Safety under the Ministry of Labour and Employment; the subject falls to the Union under Entry 55 of the Union List, covering the regulation of labour and safety in mines and oilfields.
• Among the Act's other well-known provisions are the prohibition on employing persons below eighteen years of age, the bar on employing women in any part of a mine below ground, the requirement of notice of accidents, and the power to prohibit employment where a mine is found dangerous.

• Reaching for seven days because a week is the commonest administrative notice period; section 8 fixes not less than three days
• Assuming the special officer is an Inspector; he is any government servant specially authorised in writing by the Chief Inspector or an Inspector, and the power is confined to surveying, levelling and measuring
• Forgetting that the notice runs to the manager rather than to the owner or the agent, a distinction the Act maintains throughout
• Overlooking the emergency exception, under which entry may be authorised in writing without any notice at all
• Confusing this power with an Inspector's power of inspection under section 7, which requires no notice, so that the two are remembered as carrying the same conditions

Mine safety appears in this paper's labour block as a precise-figure question almost every time: how many days' notice, what age below which employment is prohibited, which officer holds a power, on whom a duty falls. The option sets are four numbers of the same kind, so recognition is useless and only the section helps. The most efficient preparation is to read the first ten sections of the Mines Act, 1952 closely enough to hold who may enter, on what condition and after what notice, and then to learn the handful of ages and hours in the employment chapters. Where memory fails, reason from the purpose of the provision and from the Act's internal contrasts, since a statute that gives an Inspector unannounced entry will not give a surveyor a fortnight's grace, and the extremes in a set of four periods can usually be discarded on that ground alone.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Mines Act, 1952, an Inspector's power to enter, inspect and examine a mine is exercisable

  • (a)only after seven days' notice to the owner
  • (b)at all reasonable times, without any notice
  • (c)only with the written consent of the manager
  • (d)only during the hours of daylight

  Answer(b) at all reasonable times, without any notice — section 7 gives an Inspector power to enter, inspect and examine a mine and its workings, to examine documents and to hold enquiries, without any requirement of prior notice. That is the contrast with section 8, under which a specially authorised government servant entering for the narrower purpose of surveying, levelling or measuring must give the manager not less than three days' notice, and may enter without notice only in an emergency authorised in writing.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Mines Act, 1952, the three days' notice required before a special officer enters a mine for surveying, levelling or measuring must be given to

  • (a)the owner of the mine
  • (b)the agent of the mine
  • (c)the manager of the mine
  • (d)the District Magistrate

  Answer(c) the manager of the mine — section 8 requires not less than three days' notice to the manager, the person on whom the Act places day-to-day charge of the mine, before the specially authorised officer enters to survey, level or measure it or its output. The Act distinguishes owner, agent and manager throughout and allots duties to each separately, so a question of this kind is testing whether the candidate reads the section closely enough to see which of the three is named.