EPFO EO/AO 2023 General Ability Test · Question 66 of 120

Correct — B, (b) Gujarat. The provision the stem is quoting is section 12A of the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, headed 'Temporary application of model standing orders', and the answer is written into its second sub-section in as many words. The booklet prints the 'not' of the stem in bold italic: the question asks where the model standing orders do NOT apply. Section 12A(1) fills a gap in the Act. Certification takes time — the employer submits draft standing orders under section 3, the Certifying Officer works through section 4 and section 5, an appeal may be taken under section 6, and only then do the standing orders come into operation under section 7. Until that happens the establishment would have no defined conditions of service at all, which is the very evil the Act exists to end. So section 12A(1) provides that, notwithstanding sections 3 to 12, for the period beginning on the date the Act becomes applicable to an industrial establishment and ending on the date its finally certified standing orders come into operation under section 7, 'the prescribed model standing orders shall be deemed to be adopted in that establishment', and section 9, section 13(2) and section 13A apply to those model standing orders exactly as they apply to certified ones. In other words the model standing orders are a stopgap with the full force of the real thing. Section 12A(2) then carves out an exception, and it is drawn by naming States: 'Nothing contained in sub-section (1) shall apply to an industrial establishment in respect of which the appropriate Government is the Government of the State of Gujarat or the Government of the State of Maharashtra.' Gujarat is on the option list; Maharashtra is not. That is the whole answer, and the stem's phrasing — 'an establishment in respect of which the Appropriate Government is that of the State of' — is section 12A(2)'s own wording. The reason those two States and no others is historical. Both were part of the old Bombay State, and both are governed by the Bombay Industrial Relations Act, 1946, whose Chapter VII deals with standing orders. Section 1(4)(i) of this Act already provides that nothing in it applies to any industry to which Chapter VII of that Bombay Act applies. Section 12A(2) is the same policy applied to the stopgap: where a separate and older standing-orders code is in the field, the central Act's model standing orders are not deemed adopted over it.

• (a)Madhya Pradesh — Madhya Pradesh is not named in section 12A(2), which is the provision the stem quotes and which names Gujarat and Maharashtra only. The State does appear elsewhere in the Act — section 1(4)(ii) says nothing in the Act applies to any industrial establishment to which the provisions of the Madhya Pradesh Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1961 apply — but that exclusion is drawn quite differently. It fixes on which establishments the State Act of 1961 covers, not on the identity of the appropriate Government, and its proviso brings establishments under the control of the Central Government back within this Act. The stem asks the section 12A(2) question, in section 12A(2)'s words, and Madhya Pradesh is not in that list.
• (c)Kerala — Kerala appears nowhere in the Act's exclusions. The Act's carve-outs are exhaustive and short: section 1(4) takes out industries governed by Chapter VII of the Bombay Industrial Relations Act, 1946 and establishments governed by the Madhya Pradesh Act of 1961, and section 12A(2) takes the model standing orders out of Gujarat and Maharashtra. An establishment for which the Government of Kerala is the appropriate Government sits under section 12A(1) in the ordinary way, so the prescribed model standing orders are deemed adopted there from the day the Act applies until certification is complete.
• (d)West Bengal — Wrong for the same reason as Kerala. West Bengal is not named in section 12A(2) and does not fall within either limb of section 1(4), so nothing displaces the temporary operation of the model standing orders in establishments for which its Government is the appropriate Government. It is worth noticing what makes this option set work: all four are large industrial States, and only one of them carries the Bombay Industrial Relations Act's inheritance. Knowing the Bombay connection, rather than ranking the States by how industrial they are, is what settles the question.

The Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 exists to replace unwritten and arbitrary conditions of employment with certified ones. Section 1(3) applies it to every industrial establishment employing one hundred or more workmen, or which employed that many on any day of the preceding twelve months, with power in the appropriate Government to extend it lower on two months' notice. Section 3 requires draft standing orders within six months; sections 4 and 5 govern certification; section 6 allows an appeal within thirty days; section 7 fixes commencement — thirty days after despatch of the certified copies if no appeal is taken, seven days after despatch of the appellate order if one is. Section 12A supplies the interim rule: the model standing orders prescribed under the rules made under the Act — in the central sphere, the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Central Rules, 1946 — are deemed adopted from the day the Act applies until the certified orders take effect, so that no covered establishment is ever without written conditions of service. Section 12A(2) exempts Gujarat and Maharashtra, and section 1(4) keeps the whole Act off industries governed by Chapter VII of the Bombay Industrial Relations Act, 1946 and establishments governed by the Madhya Pradesh Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1961. The Act is one of the three subsumed by the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, along with the Trade Unions Act, 1926 and the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.

Labour law is the heart of the EO/AO paper, and this is the form its hardest items take: a stem that quotes a sub-section almost verbatim and offers four options that can only be separated by having read it. Nothing about Gujarat's industrial profile or its labour history will get a candidate to the answer; only section 12A(2) will. The habit rewarded is reading each Act's exclusion clauses as carefully as its operative ones, because exclusions are short, specific and easy for an examiner to key without argument.

• Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, section 12A(1) — from the date the Act applies to an establishment until its certified standing orders come into operation under section 7, the prescribed model standing orders are deemed to be adopted there.
• Section 12A(2) — sub-section (1) does not apply to an industrial establishment in respect of which the appropriate Government is the Government of the State of Gujarat or of Maharashtra.
• Section 12A(1) also applies section 9, section 13(2) and section 13A to those model standing orders as they apply to certified standing orders.
• Section 1(4)(i) — nothing in the Act applies to any industry to which Chapter VII of the Bombay Industrial Relations Act, 1946 applies; that Act is the reason Gujarat and Maharashtra are treated apart.
• Section 1(4)(ii) — nothing in the Act applies to an industrial establishment governed by the Madhya Pradesh Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1961, with a proviso preserving the Act for establishments under the control of the Central Government.
• Section 1(3) — the Act applies to every industrial establishment employing one hundred or more workmen, extendable downwards by notification after not less than two months' notice.
• Section 7 — certified standing orders operate thirty days after despatch of the certified copies where no appeal is preferred, and seven days after despatch of the appellate authority's order where one is.
• The Act is one of three subsumed by the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, with the Trade Unions Act, 1926 and the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.

• Answering the positive question. The 'not' is in bold italic in the booklet — the item asks where the model standing orders do NOT apply.
• Reaching for Madhya Pradesh because its State Act is the one most candidates remember. That exclusion is in section 1(4)(ii) and is drawn on the establishment, not on the appropriate Government.
• Guessing from a State's industrial importance. The exclusion is an inheritance of the old Bombay State, so it tracks Gujarat and Maharashtra and nothing else.
• Confusing model standing orders with certified standing orders. Model orders operate only in the interval before certification takes effect under section 7.

This Act reaches EO/AO through its numbers and through its exclusions — one hundred workmen, six months, thirty days, seven days, ninety days, and the short list of places and establishments the Act keeps clear of. Read section 1, section 7, section 10A and section 12A together as a single page and the whole family of questions on this statute becomes answerable from memory.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under section 12A of the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, the model standing orders are deemed to be adopted in an establishment until :

  • (a)The employer submits his draft standing orders to the Certifying Officer
  • (b)The Certifying Officer certifies the standing orders
  • (c)The standing orders as finally certified come into operation under section 7
  • (d)The appellate authority disposes of any appeal under section 6

  Answer(c) The standing orders as finally certified come into operation under section 7

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Nothing in the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 applies to any industry to which the provisions of which one of the following apply ?

  • (a)Chapter VII of the Bombay Industrial Relations Act, 1946
  • (b)Chapter V-A of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947
  • (c)The Trade Unions Act, 1926
  • (d)The Payment of Wages Act, 1936

  Answer(a) Chapter VII of the Bombay Industrial Relations Act, 1946