The introduction of the Right to Disconnect Bill as a private member’s bill has brought renewed attention to how Indian labour law responds to work in the digital age. Though private member’s bills are rarely enacted, the proposal is significant because it arrives soon after India consolidated its labour framework into four comprehensive labour codes. Together, these developments raise a fundamental question: how should law regulate work when employment increasingly extends beyond the physical workplace and fixed office hours?
Why the Bill has drawn attention
Digital technologies have blurred the boundary between work time and personal time. Emails, messages and calls routinely reach employees outside prescribed working hours, creating a sense of perpetual availability. The Bill attempts to address this by granting employees the right to not respond to work-related communication beyond official working hours. In doing so, it signals legislative recognition that constant connectivity can erode rest, privacy and autonomy.
However, the Bill operates within a labour law framework that continues to define work primarily through time-based constructs. Indian labour law has not yet clearly articulated what constitutes “work” in a digital economy, and this omission shapes many of the Bill’s unresolved issues.
The unresolved question: what counts as ‘work’?
The Bill regulates after-hours communication but does not clarify whether such engagement amounts to work in legal terms. This ambiguity becomes particularly evident when the Bill is read alongside the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020, which governs working hours, overtime and employer control.
If responding to emails or calls after hours is not recognised as work, then such engagement falls outside existing protections related to working time and overtime. As a result, the right to disconnect risks functioning more as a behavioural guideline than as an enforceable labour standard integrated into the broader statutory framework.
Interaction with existing labour codes
Indian labour law currently combines:
- Mandatory statutory rules that limit working hours and prescribe rest periods, and
- Contractual terms shaped by employer policies and workplace agreements.
The Bill does not specify whether the right to disconnect is a mandatory, non-negotiable standard or whether it can be modified through contracts and employer policies. This silence creates uncertainty about enforcement and opens the door to uneven application across sectors and workplaces.
How other jurisdictions approach the issue
Comparative experience highlights the conceptual gaps in the Indian approach. In the European Union, courts have progressively expanded the definition of working time by focusing on employer control rather than physical activity. Judicial decisions have treated on-call time, standby periods and enforced availability as work, even when no active task is performed.
Countries such as France and Germany do not attempt to redefine work itself. Instead, they draw a firm distinction between working time and rest time. Any period during which the employee remains under the employer’s control is treated as working time, and digital communication is accommodated within this structure, often through collective bargaining.
These examples are not blueprints for India, but they sharpen a core question: when does an employee’s time belong to the employer, and when does it belong to the individual?
The constitutional dimension of disconnecting
Another unresolved aspect of the Bill concerns its constitutional character. The freedom to disengage from work bears a clear relationship with personal liberty, dignity and autonomy under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Yet the Bill does not articulate this connection or clarify whether the right to disconnect is purely statutory or reflects a deeper constitutional guarantee within the workplace.
By not tracing its constitutional lineage, the Bill leaves open competing interpretations: it can be read either as a limited workplace entitlement or as part of a broader rights-based approach to labour and life in a digital society.
What the Bill achieves — and what it leaves open
The Bill acknowledges a crucial reality: digital labour has disrupted the traditional separation between working time and personal time. However, it does not explain how this transformation should be absorbed into the legal framework governing working hours, overtime and employer control. Comparative experience suggests that the right to disconnect becomes meaningful only when digital availability is legally recognised as working time.
Until these questions are addressed, the Bill remains anchored in a framework designed for physical workplaces rather than digital ones.
What to note for Prelims?
- Right to Disconnect Bill as a private member’s bill
- Interaction with four labour codes
- Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020
- Concept of working time versus rest time
What to note for Mains?
- Challenges of regulating digital labour in India
- Limits of time-based labour regulation in a connected economy
- Comparative perspectives on employer control and working time
- Link between labour rights and Article 21 (life and personal liberty)
Seen in this light, the Right to Disconnect Bill is less a finished solution and more the opening of a necessary debate. It flags the need for Indian labour law to rethink how work, time and autonomy are defined in a digital economy — a task that future legislation and judicial interpretation will inevitably have to undertake.
