The Industrial Relations Code (Amendment) Act, 2026

What it does

The Act (Act 1 of 2026) changes one provision of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020: section 104, which deals with repeal and savings. The effect, as the site's note on retrenchment records it, is that the Tribunals and statutory authorities constituted under the three Acts the Code repealed keep functioning until their counterparts under the Code become functional.

The Act is deemed to have come into force on 21 November 2025, the day the Code itself came into force. The amendment therefore reads as part of the changeover from the first day, and not as a later correction.

Who it binds

The Act does not impose a duty on an employer or a worker in the ordinary course. Its effect is on the forums: the Tribunals and authorities under the older Acts, and the parties who come before them. An employer or a union with a dispute pending before an industrial tribunal or a labour court, or a matter at the stage of conciliation, is affected by it, because it fixes which body continues to hear the matter.

What has changed, and when

The Code repealed three earlier Acts: the Trade Unions Act, 1926, the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 and the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The Industrial Relations Code, 2020 came into force on 21 November 2025, appointed under section 1(3) by notification S.O. 5320(E). The Central Government then made the Industrial Relations (Central) Rules, 2026 by notification G.S.R. 342(E) of 8 May 2026, in force on publication. The Amendment Act of 2026 changes only section 104 and is deemed in force from 21 November 2025.

What turns on it in practice

The change is about continuity of forum, and the immediate question for a client is where a dispute is to be filed or heard. A dispute that arose before 21 November 2025, a retrenchment that is in challenge, a reference pending before a tribunal, and a union recognition issue each need the forum identified before steps are taken. Where the Code's own authority has not yet been constituted for the area, the older body may be the only one that can act, and a filing before the wrong body invites an objection on jurisdiction.

The employment practice area advises on disputes and on industrial relations compliance, and the amendment appears in that work as a threshold point. It does not change the substance of retrenchment, lay-off or closure under the Code, which the site's note on the 300-worker line deals with: a factory, mine or plantation that averaged 300 or more workers a day over the preceding twelve months needs the appropriate Government's prior permission to lay off, retrench or close, and a smaller establishment gives notice and informs the Government.

The advice that follows is plain. For a matter that began under the older Acts, the record should show the date it began, the body it is before, and the provision of the Code or of the older Act that preserves it. The amendment supports continuity of the body, and not any change in the rights decided by it. Questions that go beyond the text of section 104, such as how far a pending proceeding is carried into the Code's new machinery, are for the repeal and savings provision read with the case.