Written by Akashi Khandelwal pursuing B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) at Institute of Law, Nirma University, Ahmedabad.
Occupational harm is still often imagined as physical injury. Although this view is understandable from a historical perspective, it is no longer true in today’s working reality. Within the field of professional, platform, and service work, many of the most serious forms of harm at work today are the result of chronic overwork, prolonged performance stress, job insecurity, workplace harassment, digital surveillance, and disappearing work-life balance. These are psychosocial hazards, and are serious precisely because they are often invisible.
This is no longer a speculation as to the magnitude of this problem. A WHO/ILO study published in May 2021 indicated that in 2016, approximately 745,000 deaths were due to stroke and ischaemic heart diseases as a result of long working hours, a rise of 29% from 2000. Part-time workers (those that worked 55 or more hours per week) were at a 35% increased risk of stroke, and a 17% increased risk of fatal ischaemic heart disease, compared with those who worked between 35 and 40 hours per week. A later WHO/ILO report from September 2021 identified long working hours as the single largest work-related risk factor, responsible for roughly 1/3rd of occupational deaths globally.
Against this background, India’s Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 is incomplete since it fails to recognise psychosocial harm as an occupational risk. There is a real gap in which the employers can meet all formal safety obligations without an obligation to identify and reduce work-induced psychological damage.
RECOGNITION OF PSYCHOSOCIAL HAZARDS
Psychosocial hazards do not represent merely moral grievances, but are an accepted category within the discipline of occupational health science. The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work states that these risks can be caused by a poor work design, organisation, management practices and harmful social conditions at work, and can cause stress, burnout, anxiety, depression and physical illness.
International health classification has also moved in this direction. Under the ICD-11, the WHO recognizes burnout as an occupational phenomenon and defines it as a syndrome resulting from chronic and unmanageable workplace stress. The same logic appears in ISO 45003:2021, the first international guidance standard focused specifically on psychological health and safety at work, which recommends identifying psychosocial hazards, assessing their risk, involving workers, and using organisational controls rather than post-hoc counselling.
The evidence at home is just as clear. A 2022 Deloitte survey of nearly 4,000 Indian employees estimated Indian employers are losing an estimated US$14 billion per year because of mental health issues, including absenteeism, presenteeism and attrition among almost 4,000 employees. It revealed that nearly 80% of those surveyed reported experiencing mental health problems in the past year, while 47% reported workplace stress as the biggest contributor to their mental health problems.
THE OSH CODE AND THE CODE ON WAGES
The OSH Code is a physically demanding, psychologically unchallenging document. Section 6(1)(c) requires annual health check-ups for workers above 40, with special provision for hazardous processes, but the focus is only physical health. Section 6(1)(d) requires a safe working environment, yet the Code does not define safety to include psychological risk. The Second Schedule incorporates diseases like pneumoconiosis, dermatitis, hearing loss, but doesn’t include burnout, chronic stress or work-related anxiety and depression.
An objection can be that Indian labour law already regulates overwork through the Code on Wages, 2019. Section 13 fixes the normal working day, and Section 14 requires overtime wages at not less than twice the ordinary rate. The OSH code also contemplates daily and weekly hour limits, but this does not solve the problem, as wage law and occupational safety law do different things. The Code on Wages regulates the price and duration of labour, not the health effects of it. An employer can pay overtime and still expose workers to burnout, cardiovascular risk or psychological injury. That may satisfy wage law, but it does not satisfy the logic of occupational safety because compensation for extra hours is not the same as prevention of harm.
There are no supporting laws around this gap. The Mental Healthcare Act, 2017, gives access to treatment and protects dignity, but is only for people with mental illness. Also, it does not impose preventive duties on employers. The Employees’ Compensation Act, 1923, was designed for a specific type of accident and/or bodily injury, and its scope of application for psychosocial harm is inconsistent and unpredictable.
THE LIABILITY GAP
If psychosocial hazards are not specifically identified by the law as occupational hazards, the employers benefit from the law’s ambiguity. Stress can become a personal issue, burnout can be seen as an issue of personal resilience, and work psychosocial harm can be traced to an individual’s inability to cope. This is the reason why statutory recognition is so necessary, as it moves the focus from the personal to the institutional.
The apparent loophole in the law was pointed out by Anna Sebastian Perayil’s death in 2024. She joined EY in March 2024 and passed away just 4 months after joining. In an open letter to EY India Chairman, her mother Anita Augustine complained of unfair working practices and said that the extreme workload left her daughter to die. Tribune India and other reports confirm the public controversy that followed.
The case has not been a deciding factor in the matter of whether every allegation is true or false, but rather the light it shed on the design of legislation. The employer did not have to assess and/or reduce any psychosocial hazards of the type claimed. That the harm was improbable did not keep the employer’s legal position defensible, it was only because there was no legal obligation to prevent it. The case was both a tragedy, and a diagnosis of a failing legislation.
COMPARATIVE MODELS
With the help of comparative law, India’s legislative inaction is being called into question more and more. Australia’s Work Health and Safety (Psychosocial Risks) Amendment Regulations 2022 require employers to manage psychosocial risks – including high demands, low control, poor support, bullying and harassment, and traumatic exposure. In Australia, psychosocial harm is treated as ordinary occupational safety law, not as a wellness add-on.
The United Kingdom’s Health and Safety Executive’s Management Standards identify 6 risk domains: demands, control, support, relationships, role, and change. The UK model indicates that such psychosocial duties can be incorporated into current occupational safety system, via rules and practice standards; this is directly relevant to India, where the OSH Code does provide an enabling architecture for rules and practice standards for OSH.
In France, Article L2242-71 of the Labour Code compels companies with 50 or more employees to negotiate or adopt rules on the right to disconnect. The law institutionalises the norm of the separation between work and rest.
A FRAMEWORK FOR INDIA
India does not need to make a new law, but use the one it already has. The first step is an amendment to the OSH Code to include psychological health within occupational safety. Section 6(1)(d)’s “safe working environment” should be defined to include freedom from foreseeable psychological harm caused by work organisation and management.
The Central Government should then develop psychosocial risk rules to align with ISO 45003:2021 and the Australian approach. Those rules should be able to identify hazards like: excessive hours, insufficient rest, role ambiguity, bullying, unreasonable monitoring, and continual after-hours demands. They should also require worker participation and documented risk assessments. Importantly, excessive working hours should be judged by health risk, and not just by whether the overtime wages have been paid under Section 14 of the Code on Wages, 2019.
The Second Schedule of the OSH Code should be expanded to include burnout and work-related anxiety and depression where occupational causation is clear. Objective indicators — hours worked, supervisor conduct, and medical chronology can make causation manageable. Other changes could include anonymous reporting, Employee Assistance Programs required by the employer, and a right to disconnect, as well as internal and external complaint procedures.
The omission of psychosocial hazards from the OSH Code seems to be a policy error, and it is becoming ever more difficult to justify in the light of the ever-expanding evidence base. In 2020, there was no doubt about the evidence and global standards, yet India chose to legislate for safety while leaving the psychological side of work largely invisible. The way forward is clear in terms of technique. The psychosocial risk regulations introduced in Australia, the UK’s Management Standards and ISO 4503:2021, all provide a robust template which Indian Lawmakers can copy and paste with an amendment to the law and a new set of rules. The distance is not a structural or inevitable distance. It is a legislative decision and can be changed by the legislature.
Caveat: The views, analyses, and information presented in this article are provided in good faith and for general informational purposes only. No representation or warranty, express or implied, is made regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, or completeness of the information. Readers should conduct their own research and seek professional guidance where appropriate. Neither the author nor the publisher shall be held responsible for any loss, liability, or consequence arising from reliance on this content.
Leave a Reply