EPFO EO/AO 2023 General Ability Test · Question 69 of 120

Correct — C, (c) The Chairperson of the Committee shall be nominated by the Appropriate Government. The booklet prints the 'not' in bold italics — the item asks for the statement that is NOT correct — and it prints the stem with a plural subject and a singular verb, 'Which of the statements ... is not correct ?', exactly as reproduced here. The provision is section 9C of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, headed 'Setting up of Grievance Redressal Machinery'. Sub-section (3) is the one this option contradicts, and it says: 'The chairperson of the Grievance Redressal Committee shall be selected from the employer and from among the workmen alternatively on rotation basis every year.' The chair therefore alternates between the two sides annually, and no outside authority appoints it. The appropriate Government has no role in constituting this Committee at all — no nomination, no approval, no notification. That is deliberate. The Grievance Redressal Committee is in-house machinery for individual grievances, built to settle a workman's complaint inside the establishment before it becomes an industrial dispute, and giving the chair to a government nominee would turn it into a small tribunal and defeat the point. The other three statements are section 9C in its own words. Sub-section (1): every industrial establishment employing twenty or more workmen shall have one or more Grievance Redressal Committee for the resolution of disputes arising out of individual grievances. Sub-section (2): the Committee shall consist of an equal number of members from the employer and the workmen. Sub-section (4): the total number of members shall not exceed six, with a proviso that there shall as far as practicable be one woman member where the Committee has two members, and that where there are more than two members the number of women members may be increased proportionately. Worth carrying with the section: the Committee may complete its proceedings within thirty days of receiving a written application (sub-section 6); a workman aggrieved by its decision may appeal to the employer, who must dispose of the appeal within one month and send him a copy of the decision (sub-section 7); the existence of the Committee does not affect the workman's right to raise an industrial dispute on the same matter (sub-section 5); and the section does not apply where the establishment already has an established grievance redressal mechanism (sub-section 8).

• (a)It shall consist of equal number of members from among employer and workmen. — This statement IS correct, so it cannot answer a 'not correct' stem. It reproduces section 9C(2) — the Grievance Redressal Committee shall consist of equal number of members from the employer and the workmen. Bipartite parity is the design principle of the whole institution: the Committee is the two sides of the establishment sitting together, which is also why the chair has to rotate between them rather than sit permanently with either.
• (b)It shall be constituted in an industrial establishment employing twenty or more workmen. — This statement IS correct. Section 9C(1) requires every industrial establishment employing twenty or more workmen to have one or more Grievance Redressal Committee. The figure is worth fixing because the provision that section 9C replaced used a different one: the old Chapter II-B, inserted in 1982 and never brought into force, required a Grievance Settlement Authority in establishments employing fifty or more workmen. Twenty is the live number; fifty is the number a half-remembered reading produces.
• (d)The total members of the Committee shall not be more than six. — This statement IS correct. Section 9C(4) caps the Committee's membership — the statute's own phrasing is the slightly redundant 'shall not exceed more than six', which the paper tidies to 'shall not be more than six' without changing the rule. Do not overlook the proviso attached to the same sub-section: as far as practicable there is to be one woman member where the Committee has two members, and where the members are more than two the number of women members may be increased proportionately.

The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 is built for collective disputes, and section 9C is its answer to the individual one. Inserted as a substituted Chapter II-B by Act 24 of 2010 with effect from 18 August 2010, it requires every industrial establishment with twenty or more workmen to keep standing in-house machinery for individual grievances: a bipartite Committee of not more than six members, equally drawn from employer and workmen, chaired by each side in turn a year at a time, with a woman member as far as practicable. It is designed to be quick and low — thirty days for the Committee, one month for an appeal to the employer — and it is expressly not a substitute for the Act's main machinery, because sub-section (5) preserves the workman's right to raise an industrial dispute on the same matter. Sub-section (8) keeps the section off establishments that already have a grievance redressal mechanism of their own. Read it beside section 2A, which lets an individual workman take a discharge, dismissal, retrenchment or termination straight to conciliation and then to a Labour Court, and the design becomes clear: section 9C for grievances inside the workplace, section 2A for the individual dispute that has outgrown it.

EPFO likes this section because it is short, numerically dense and entirely inside one sub-section per fact — twenty workmen, equal numbers, six members, one year of rotation, thirty days, one month. A four-statement item can be built from it without any risk of ambiguity, and the false statement can be manufactured by importing the appropriate Government, which appears everywhere else in this Act and nowhere in section 9C. The habit rewarded is noticing who acts in a provision, not only what is done: three of these statements describe the Committee's composition and coverage, and the fourth introduces an actor the section never mentions.

• Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, section 9C(1) — every industrial establishment employing twenty or more workmen shall have one or more Grievance Redressal Committee for disputes arising out of individual grievances.
• Section 9C(2) — the Committee shall consist of equal number of members from the employer and the workmen.
• Section 9C(3) — the chairperson is selected from the employer and from among the workmen alternatively, on a rotation basis, every year; the appropriate Government has no part in it.
• Section 9C(4) — total membership shall not exceed six, with one woman member as far as practicable where there are two members and proportionately more where there are more.
• Section 9C(5) — setting up the Committee does not affect the workman's right to raise an industrial dispute on the same matter.
• Section 9C(6) — the Committee may complete its proceedings within thirty days of receiving a written application by or on behalf of the aggrieved party.
• Section 9C(7) — an aggrieved workman may appeal to the employer, who must dispose of the appeal within one month and send him a copy of the decision.
• Section 9C(8) — the section does not apply to workmen for whom an established grievance redressal mechanism already exists in the establishment.
• The present section 9C was substituted by Act 24 of 2010 with effect from 18 August 2010; the earlier Chapter II-B of 1982, never enforced, spoke of a Grievance Settlement Authority in establishments employing fifty or more workmen.

• Answering the positive question. The 'not' is in bold italics, and three of these statements are correct.
• Importing the appropriate Government into section 9C. It appoints nothing here; the chair rotates between the two sides annually.
• Confusing the twenty-workmen threshold of section 9C with the fifty of the unenforced 1982 provision or the hundred of the Works Committee under section 3.
• Reading the six-member cap as a fixed size. It is a maximum, and the Committee must in any case have equal numbers from each side.

Numbers and actors are what EO/AO asks about in the Industrial Disputes Act — how many workmen bring a provision into play, how many members a body has, how many days a step takes, and who appoints or decides. Tabulate section 3, section 9C, section 2A and Chapters V-A and V-B by threshold and by decision-maker, and the paper's questions on this Act mostly answer themselves.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under section 9C of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, the chairperson of the Grievance Redressal Committee is :

  • (a)Nominated by the appropriate Government
  • (b)Always an officer of the employer
  • (c)Selected from the employer and from among the workmen alternatively on rotation basis every year
  • (d)Elected by the workmen of the establishment by secret ballot

  Answer(c) Selected from the employer and from among the workmen alternatively on rotation basis every year

• practice — not a real PYQ

  A workman aggrieved by the decision of a Grievance Redressal Committee under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 may prefer an appeal to the employer, who shall dispose of it within :

  • (a)Fifteen days
  • (b)Thirty days
  • (c)One month
  • (d)Three months

  Answer(c) One month