Enforcement Officer / Accounts Officer (EO/AO) 2020 recruitment test, advertisement 421. Transcribed from the Commission's own booklet (series A, NMJX-U-GTA); answer as per the official UPSC final answer key. This question is in Part B. Answer last reviewed 24 August 2026.

Match List I with List II and select the correct answer using the code given below the lists : List I (Term) A. Closure B. Workmen C. Strike D. Lockout List II (Explanation) 1. Permanent closing down of a place of employment 2. Any person employed in any industry to do skilled, unskilled or manual work 3. Temporary closing down of workplace by the management 4. Cessation of work by employees

(a)A-1, B-2, C-4, D-3
(b)A-3, B-4, C-2, D-1
(c)A-1, B-4, C-2, D-3
(d)A-3, B-2, C-4, D-1

Answer

Why

Correct — A, (a) A-1, B-2, C-4, D-3. Every term in List I is a defined word of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, and List II reproduces those statutory definitions in compressed form, so the item is settled by reading section 2 rather than by general sense. Closure is section 2(cc), 'the permanent closing down of a place of employment or part thereof', which fixes A-1. Workman is section 2(s), 'any person (including an apprentice) employed in any industry to do any manual, unskilled, skilled, technical, operational, clerical or supervisory work for hire or reward' — entry 2 is the only entry on the list that describes a person at all, the other three describing acts. Strike is section 2(q), 'a cessation of work by a body of persons employed in any industry acting in combination', giving C-4. Lock-out is section 2(l), 'the temporary closing of a place of employment, or the suspension of work, or the refusal by an employer to continue to employ any number of persons employed by him', giving D-3. The whole item turns on one adjective. Closure and lock-out both describe an employer shutting the workplace; permanent belongs to closure and temporary to lock-out, and the Act draws that line on purpose — the definition of closure was inserted into section 2 by the Industrial Disputes (Amendment) Act, 1982 to mark the difference off. Fix A-1 and D-3 from that adjective and only two rows of the code grid survive; entry 2 is then the only one a person can be, and B-2 decides between them.

Why the others are wrong

(b)A-3, B-4, C-2, D-1 — Every pair here is wrong, which is the tell that the grid has been read as a rotation rather than as four independent definitions. It makes closure the temporary shutdown and lock-out the permanent one, exactly inverting sections 2(cc) and 2(l); it then calls 'workmen' a cessation of work, which is the definition of a strike, and calls a strike 'any person employed in any industry', which is the definition of a workman. A row in which not one pair is defensible should be struck as soon as the first pair fails.
(c)A-1, B-4, C-2, D-3 — This gets the two shutdown terms right — closure permanent, lock-out temporary — and then swaps the remaining pair, tying 'workmen' to the cessation of work and 'strike' to the person employed in industry. It is the option that punishes a candidate who anchors on the hard distinction, feels safe and stops checking. The guard against it is grammatical rather than legal: section 2(s) defines a workman as a PERSON, while section 2(q) defines a strike as an ACT, so the two entries cannot be exchanged whatever else is true.
(d)A-3, B-2, C-4, D-1 — The reverse failure. Workmen and strike are correctly placed, but closure and lock-out are inverted, which is the single most consequential mistake available in this vocabulary. The Act attaches wholly different machinery to each: a lock-out is industrial action regulated alongside strikes by sections 22 to 24, while a closure triggers sixty days' notice under section 25FFA, compensation to workmen under section 25FFF, and, in an establishment covered by Chapter VB, prior permission under section 25-O. Reading one as the other misplaces the employer's obligations entirely.

Concept

Industrial-relations law works from a small set of defined terms, and section 2 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 is where four of the commonest live. Two of them describe the employer stopping work and are separated only by permanence: closure, section 2(cc), is 'the permanent closing down of a place of employment or part thereof', while a lock-out, section 2(l), is 'the temporary closing of a place of employment, or the suspension of work, or the refusal by an employer to continue to employ any number of persons employed by him'. Two more form the matching pair on the other side of the table: a strike, section 2(q), is the workmen's instrument — 'a cessation of work by a body of persons employed in any industry acting in combination, or a concerted refusal, or a refusal under a common understanding, of any number of persons who are or have been so employed to continue to work or to accept employment' — and a workman, section 2(s), is the person the Act protects, defined as any person, apprentices included, employed in any industry to do manual, unskilled, skilled, technical, operational, clerical or supervisory work for hire or reward. Read as a whole, the Act sets the strike against the lock-out as the two sides' weapons of equal standing, and sets closure apart from both as the end of the enterprise rather than a move within a dispute.

An Enforcement Officer works these statutes daily, so the EO/AO paper tests labour law as vocabulary before it tests anything else: which section says what, and which word does the work in it. This is the only Match List item on the paper, and its four options are rows of numerals rather than sentences, so nothing can be recovered from the look of the option text — the pairs have to be built from memory of the definitions and then checked against the grid. The habit it rewards is anchoring on the pair you are certain of, eliminating on that alone, and only then spending time on the pair you are unsure of.

Key facts

Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, section 2(cc): 'closure' means the permanent closing down of a place of employment or part thereof. The clause was inserted by the Industrial Disputes (Amendment) Act, 1982 (Act 46 of 1982).
Section 2(l): 'lock-out' means the temporary closing of a place of employment, or the suspension of work, or the refusal by an employer to continue to employ any number of persons employed by him.
Section 2(q): 'strike' means a cessation of work by a body of persons employed in any industry acting in combination, or a concerted refusal, or a refusal under a common understanding, of any number of persons who are or have been so employed to continue to work or to accept employment.
Section 2(s): 'workman' means any person, including an apprentice, employed in any industry to do any manual, unskilled, skilled, technical, operational, clerical or supervisory work for hire or reward, and includes a person dismissed, discharged or retrenched in connection with an industrial dispute.
A strike needs a body of persons acting in combination — one workman walking out is not a strike under section 2(q), because the concert is part of the definition.
Closure and lay-off are also different things: a lay-off under section 2(kkk) is the employer's failure, refusal or inability to give employment to a workman whose name is on the muster rolls, for reasons such as shortage of coal, power or raw materials, and the workman stays on the rolls.
Sections 22 to 24 regulate strikes and lock-outs together, including the notice requirements in public utility services and the circumstances in which either is illegal — the Act treats them as mirror images.

Four defined terms of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947

A. Closure — 1. Permanent closing down of a place of employment→Section 2(cc): ‘the permanent closing down of a place of employment or part thereof’. The clause was inserted into section 2 by the Industrial Disputes (Amendment) Act, 1982, precisely in order to mark closure off from a lock-out.

D. Lockout — 3. Temporary closing down of workplace by the management→Section 2(l): ‘the temporary closing of a place of employment, or the suspension of work, or the refusal by an employer to continue to employ any number of persons employed by him’.

B. Workmen — 2. Any person employed in any industry to do skilled, unskilled or manual work→Section 2(s): any person, apprentices included, employed in any industry to do manual, unskilled, skilled, technical, operational, clerical or supervisory work for hire or reward. Entry 2 is the only entry on the list that describes a PERSON at all; the other three describe acts.

C. Strike — 4. Cessation of work by employees→Section 2(q): a cessation of work by a body of persons employed in any industry acting in combination, or a concerted refusal, or a refusal under a common understanding, to continue to work. The concert is part of the definition — one workman walking out is not a strike.

The whole item turns on one adjective→Closure and lock-out both describe an employer shutting the workplace, and the only thing separating them is PERMANENT against TEMPORARY. Fix A-1 and D-3 from that adjective and only two rows of the code grid survive; entry 2 is then the only one a person can be, and B-2 decides between them.

Why the distinction matters beyond the grid→The Act attaches wholly different machinery to each. A lock-out is industrial action, regulated alongside strikes by sections 22 to 24, which treat the two as mirror images — the two sides’ weapons of equal standing. A closure is the end of the enterprise rather than a move within a dispute, and carries its own notice and compensation provisions. A lay-off under section 2(kkk) is a third thing again: the employer’s failure, refusal or inability to give employment for reasons such as a shortage of coal, power or raw materials, with the workman still on the muster rolls.

Study next

Section 2 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 read straight through — industry, industrial dispute, appropriate Government, lay-off, retrenchment, closure, lock-out, strike, workmanChapter VA and Chapter VB of the Act: notice, compensation and prior permission for lay-off, retrenchment and closure, and the hundred-workmen threshold that separates themSections 22 to 24: prohibition of strikes and lock-outs in public utility services, and when either becomes illegalThe dispute-settlement machinery — conciliation officer, Board of Conciliation, Court of Inquiry, Labour Court, Industrial Tribunal, National TribunalThe four Labour Codes and how the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 restates these same definitionsThe Trade Unions Act, 1926 definitions that sit alongside these, especially 'trade dispute' in section 2(g)

Common traps

Reading closure as the temporary shutdown. Permanent is closure; temporary is lock-out, and this is the pair every Match List on the topic is built around.
Treating a lock-out as something workmen do. It is the employer's act throughout — the workmen's counterpart is the strike.
Pairing a term that names a PERSON with an entry that names an ACT. Checking the grammatical category of each entry eliminates half the wrong rows before any law is recalled.
Answering a code-grid item from the pair you are least sure of. Anchor on the pair you know, cut the rows that contradict it, and only then work on the rest.
Assuming any cessation of work is a strike. Section 2(q) requires a body of persons acting in combination or under a common understanding.
Confusing closure with lay-off or retrenchment. Closure ends the place of employment; a lay-off keeps the workman on the muster rolls; retrenchment terminates the workman while the establishment continues.

The labour-law blocks of the EO/AO paper reward exact statutory wording. Most items are one-line recall of a definition, a threshold or a number of days, and the occasional Match List assembles four such definitions into one question. Where a Match List appears, its options are printed as rows of numerals under an A B C D header, so the reasoning has to be done before the options are looked at. Definitions from the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, the Trade Unions Act, 1926 and the Factories Act, 1948 recur across sittings, and the pairs the Commission likes are the ones separated by a single word.

Related PYQs

EPFO_EOAO_2020_Q63Open & attempt →

What is a controlled industry ?

(a) Any industry the control of which by the Union has been declared by any Central Act to be expedient in the public interest
(b) Any industry the control of which by the State has been declared by any State Act to be expedient in the public interest
(c) Any industry the control of which by the Municipal bodies has been declared by any Municipal Rules to be expedient in the public interest
(d) Any industry the control of which by the State has been declared by any Central Act to be expedient in the public interest

Answer(a) Any industry the control of which by the Union has been declared by any Central Act to be expedient in the public interest

The next item on this paper, and another definition out of section 2 of the same Act — 'controlled industry' in section 2(ee). Read together they show how much of the labour-law block is section 2 recall.

EPFO_EOAO_2020_Q65Open & attempt →

Which of the following disputes is/are considered as trade dispute(s) under the provision of the Trade Union Act, 1926 ? Any dispute of any person connected with 1. Employment 2. Non-Employment 3. Conditions of Labour Select the correct answer using the code given below :

(a) 1 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 1, 2 and 3
(d) 1 and 3 only

Answer(c) 1, 2 and 3

The Trade Unions Act, 1926 definition of a 'trade dispute'. It uses the same drafting habit — a term of art defined by an exhaustive list of limbs — on the union side of the same subject.

EPFO_APFC_2023_Q35

The Right of workers to resort to strike is the

(a) Fundamental Right
(b) Statutory Right
(c) Common Law Right
(d) Equitable Right

Answer(c) Common Law Right

Asks what kind of right the workers' right to strike is, which is the natural next question once the definition in section 2(q) is known.

EPFO_EOAO_2023_Q99

Match List I with List II and select the correct answer using the code given below the Lists : List I (Provision) A. Displacement Allowance B. Certifying Surgeon C. Half-monthly payment D. Piece work List II (Act) 1. The Factories Act, 1948 2. The Minimum Wages Act, 1948 3. The Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979 4. The Employees’ Compensation Act, 1923 Code : A B C D

(a) 2 1 4 3
(b) 3 1 4 2
(c) 2 4 1 3
(d) 3 4 1 2

Answer(b) 3 1 4 2

The other EPFO Match List of this family: four labour-law provisions to be matched to the Acts they come from, again with the options printed as rows of numerals.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, the temporary closing of a place of employment by the employer is termed :
- (a)Closure
- (b)Lay-off
- (c)Lock-out
- (d)Retrenchment
Answer(c) Lock-out
practice — not a real PYQ
Under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, a strike is an act of which one of the following ?
- (a)The employer, in closing the workplace temporarily
- (b)A body of employed persons, in ceasing work in combination
- (c)The appropriate Government, in prohibiting work in a public utility service
- (d)A conciliation officer, in suspending proceedings
Answer(b) A body of employed persons, in ceasing work in combination

Why