Maharashtra Essential Services Maintenance Act, 2017
No: 18 Dated: Feb, 20 2018
Maharashtra Essential Services Maintenance Act, 2017
Act No. XVIII of 2018
An Act to provide for the maintenance of certain essential services and the normal life of the community ; and to provided for the matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
WHEREAS it is expedient to provide for the maintenance of certain essential services and the normal life of the community ; and to provide for the matters connected therewith or incidental thereto ; it is hereby enacted in the Sixty-eighth Year of the Republic of India as follows :—
1. Short title, extent, commencement and duration:- (1) This Act may be called the Maharashtra Essential Services Maintenance Act, 2017.
(2) It extends to the whole of the State of Maharashtra.
(3) It shall come into force on such date as the State Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint and shall cease to have effect on the expiry of the five years from the said date except as respects things done or omitted to be done before such cesser of operation of this Act ; and section 7 of the Maharashtra General Clauses Act, shall apply upon such cesser of operation of this Act as if it had then been repealed by a Maharashtra Act.
2. Definitions:- In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,—
(a) “ essential service ” means,—
(i) any transport service for the carriage of passengers or goods, by land or water, with respect to which the State Legislature has power to make laws ;
(ii) any service connected with the supply of gas or milk or water or electricity with respect to which the State Legislature has power to make laws ;
(iii) any service connected with the maintenance of public health and sanitation including hospitals and dispensaries ;
(iv) any public service, post and employment in connection with the affairs of the State and also persons appointed to the secretarial staff of both Houses of the State Legislature, and the officers and servants of the High Court ;
(v) any service or post in connection with the affairs of the local authorities ;
(vi) any other service, post, employment or class thereof, connected with matters in respect of which the State Legislature has power to make laws and when the State Government is of opinion that strike in such service, post, employment or class thereof would prejudicially affect the public safety or the maintenance of the supplies or services essential to the life of the community or would result in the infliction of grave hardships on the community, and which the State Government by notification in the Official Gazette, declares to be an essential service for the purpose of this Act ;
(b) “ strike ” means the cessation of work by a body of persons employed in any essential service 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 includes,—
(i) refusal to work overtime, where such work is necessary for the maintenance of any essential service ;
(ii) any other conduct, which is likely to result in, or results in, cessation or substantial retardation of work in any essential service ;
(c) words and expressions used in sections 5 and 6 and not defined herein but defined in the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, shall have the meanings respectively assigned to them in that Act.
3. Laying of notification before each House of State Legislature:- (1) Every notification issued under sub-clause (vi) of clause (a) of section 2 shall be laid before each House of the State Legislature, immediately after it is made, if it is in session, and on the first day of the commencement of the next session of the House if it is not in session and shall cease to operate at the expiration of forty days from the date of its being so laid or from the re-assembly of the State Legislature, as the case may be, unless before the expiration of that period, a resolution approving the issue of the notification is passed by both Houses of the State Legislature.
(2) Where any notification ceases to operate by or under sub-section (1), the cesser shall be without prejudice to anything done or omitted to be done before such cesser.
Explanation.—Where the Houses of the State Legislature are summoned to re-assemble on different dates, the period of forty days shall be reckoned from the later of those dates.