THE MINES ACT, 1952

THE MINES ACT, 1952

An Act to amend and consolidate the law relating to the Regulation of labour and safety in mines. Be it enacted by Parliament as follows :-

Contents

CHAPTER I - PRELIMINARY

1.Short title extent and commencement

2.Definitions

3.References to enactments not in force n Part B States

4.References to time of day

CHAPTER II INSPECTORS AND CERTIFYING SURGEONS

5.Chief Inspector and Inspectors

6.Functions of Inspectors

7.Powers of Inspectors of Mines

8.Powers of special officer to enter, measure, etc

9.Facilities to be afforded to Inspectors

10.Secrecy of information obtained

11.Certifying surgeons

CHAPTER III MINING BOARDS AND COMMITTEES

12.Mining boards

13.Committees

14.Powers of Mining boards

15.Recovery of expenses

CHAPTER IV MINING OPERATIONS AND MANAGEMENT OF MINES

16.Notice to be given of mining operations

17.Managers

18.Duties and responsibilities of owners, agents and managers

CHAPTER V PROVISIONS AS TO HEALTH AND SAFETY

19.Drinking water

20.Conservancy

21.Medical appliances

22.Powers of Inspectors when causes of danger not expressly provided against exist or when employment of persons id dangerous

23.Notice to be given of accidents

24.Power of Government to appoint Court of inquiry in cases of accidents

25.Notice of certain diseases

26.Power to direct investigation of causes of disease

27.Publication of reports

CHAPTER VI HOURS AND LIMITATION OF EMPLOYMENT

28.Weekly day of rest

29.Compensatory days of rest

30.Hours of work above ground

31.Hours of work below ground

32.Special provision for night relays

33.Extra wages for overtime

34.Prohibition of employment of certain persons

35.Limitation of periods of overtime work

36.Notices regarding hours of work

37.Supervising staff

38.Exemption from provisions regarding employment

39.Power to make exempting rules

40.Employment of adolescents

41.Certificate of fitness

42.Effect of certificate of fitness granted to adolescents

43.Power to require medical examination

44.Working hours for adolescents not certified to be fit for work as adults

45.Employment of children

46.Employment of women

47.Disputes as to age

48.Registers of persons employed

CHAPTER VII LEAVE WITH WAGES

49.Leave defined

50.Application of Chapter

51.Annual leave with wages

52.Wages during leave period

53.Payment in advance in certain cases

54.Power of Inspector to act for an employee

55.Power to make rules

56.Power to exempt mines

CHAPTER VIII REGULATIONS, RULES AND BYE-LAWS

57.Power of Central Government to make regulations

58.Power of Central Government to make rules

59.Prior publication of regulations and rules

60.Power to make regulations without previous publication

61.Bye- laws

62.Posting up of abstracts from Act, regulations, etc

CHAPTER IX PENALTIES AND PROCEDURE

63.Obstruction

64.Falsification of records, etc

65.Use of false certificates of fitness

66.Omission to furnish plans, etc

67.Contravention of provisions regarding employment of labour

68.Penalty for double employment of young persons

69.Failure to appoint manager

70.Notice of accidents

71.Owner, etc., to report to Chief Inspector in certain cases

72.Obligation of persons employed in a mine

73.Disobedience of orders

74.Contravention of law with dangerous results

75.Prosecution of owner, agent or manager

76.Determination of owner in certain cases

77.Exemption of owner, agent or manager from liability in certain cases

78.Power of court to make orders

79.Limitation of prosecutions

80.Cognizance of offences

81.Reference to Mining Board or Committee in lieu of prosecution in certain cases

CHAPTER X MISCELLANEOUS

82.Decision of question whether a mine is under this Act

83.Power to exempt from operation of Act

84.Power to alter or rescind orders

85.Applications of Act to mines belonging to Government

86.Application of certain provisions of Act LXIII of 1948 to mines

87.Protection of action taken in good faith

CHAPTER I

PRELIMINARY

1. Short title, extent and commencement –

(1) This Act may be called the Mines Act, 1952.

(2)It extends to whole of India

(3)It shall come into force on sub date or dates as the Central Government may, by notification in the official Gazette, appoint, and different dates may be appointed for different provisions of this Act and for different states but not later than 31st December, 1953.

2. Definitions : - (1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires :

(a) omitted

(b) “adult” means a person who has completed his eighteenth year.

(c) “agent”, when used in relation to a mine, means every person, whether appointed as such or not, who, acting or purporting to act on behalf of the owner, takes part in the management, control, supervision or direction of the mine or of any part thereof:

(d) “Chief Inspector” means the Chief Inspector of Mines appointed under this Act;

(e) “Committee” means a committee constituted under section 12:

(f) “day” means a period of twenty-four hours beginning at mid-night;

(g) “district magistrate” means, in a presidency-town, the person appointed by the Central Government to perform the duties of a district magistrate under this Act in that town;

(h) a person is said to be “employed” in a mine who works as the manager or who works under appointment by the owner, agent or manager of the mine or with knowledge of the manager, whether for wages or not.

(i) in any mining operation (including the concomitant operations of handing and transport of minerals up to the point of despatch and of gathering sand and transport thereof to the mine)

(ii) in operations or services relating to the development of the mine including construction of plant therein but excluding construction of buildings, roads, wells and any building work not directly connected with any existing or future mining operations:

(iii) in operating, servicing, maintaining or repairing any part or any machinery used in or about the mine;

(iv) in operations, within the premises of the mine of loading for despatch of minerals;

(v) in any office of the mine:

(vi) in any welfare, health, sanitary or conservancy services required to be provided under this Act, or watch and ward, within the premises of the mine excluding residential area; or

(vii) in any kind of work whatsoever which is preparatory or incidental to, or connected with mining operations;

(i) “Inspector” means an Inspector of Mines appointed under this Act, and includes a district magistrate when exercising any power or performing any duty of an Inspector which is empowered by this Act to exercise or perform;

(i) “mine” means any excavation where any operation for the purpose of searching for or obtaining minerals has been or is being carried on and includes -

(i) all borings, bore holes, oil wells and accessory crude conditioning plants, including the pipe conveying mineral oil within the oilfields:

(ii) all shafts, in or adjacent to and belonging to a mine, where in the course of being sunk or not:

(iii) all levels and inclined planes in the course of being driven;

(iv) all opencast workings;
(v) all conveyors or aerial ropeways provided for the bringing into or removal from a mine of minerals or other articles or for the removal of refuse therefrom;

(vi)all adits, livels, planes, machinery works, railways, tramways and sidings in or adjacent to and belonging to a mine;

(vii) all protective works being carried out in or adjacent to a mine;

(viii) all workshop and store situated within the precincts of a mine and the same management and used primarily for the purposes connected with that mine or a number of mines under the same management;

(ix) all power stations, transformer sub-stations converter stations : rectifier stations and accumulator storage stations for supplying electricity solely or mainly for the purpose of working the mine or a number of mines under the same management;

(x) any premises for the time being used for depositing sand or other material for use in a mine or for depositing refuse from a mine or in which any operations in connection with such and refuse or other material is being carried on, being premises exclusively occupied by the owner of the mine:
(xi) any premises in or adjacent to and belonging to a mine or which any process ancillary to the getting, dressing or operation for sale of minerals or of coke is being carried on;

(jj) “minerals” means all substances which can be obtained from the earth by mining, digging, drilling, dredging, hydraulicing, quarrying, or by any other operation and includes mineral oils (which in turn include natural gas and petroleum):

(jjj)

(k) “office of the mine” means any office at the surface of the mine concerned;

(kk) “Open cast working” means a quarry, that is to say an excavation where any operation for the purpose of searching for or obtaining minerals has been or is being carried on, not being a shaft or an excavation which extends below superjacent ground.

(i) “owner” when used, in relation to a mine, means any person who is the immediate proprietor or lessee or occupier of the mine or of any part thereof and in the case of a mine the business whereof is being carried on by liquidator or receiver, such liquidator or receiver but does not include a person who merely receives a royalty rent or fine from the mine, subject to any lease grant or licence for the working thereof, or is merely the owner of the soil and not interested in the minerals of the mine; but (any contractor or sub-lessee for the working of a mine or any part thereof shall be subject to this Act in like manner as if he were an owner, but not so as to exempt the owner from any liability;

(m) “Prescribed” means prescribed by rules, regulation or byelaws, as the case may ;

(n) “qualified medical practitioner” means a medical practitioner who possesses any recognised medical qualification as defined in clause (h) of section 2 of the Indian Medical Council Act, 1959 and who is enrolled on a state medical register as defined in clause (k) of that section:)
(o) “regulations” “rules” and “bye-laws” means respectively regulations, rules and bye-laws made under this Act;

(p) where work of the same kind is carried out by two or more sets of persons working during different periods of the day each of such sets is called a “relay” (and each of such periods is called a “shift”,)

(pp)”reportable injury” means any injury other than a serious bodily injury which involves, or in all probability will involve, the enforced absence of the injured persons from work for a period of seventy-two hours or more.

(q) “serious bodily injury” means any injury which involves; or in probability will involve the permanent loss of any part or section of a body or the use of any part or section of a body, or the permanent loss of or injury to the sight or hearing or any permanent physical incapacity or the fracture of any bone or one or more joints or bones of any phalanges of hand or foot.

(r) “week” means a period of seven days beginning at midnight on Saturday night or such other night as may be approved in writing for a particular area by the Chief Inspector or an Inspector.

(2) A person working or employed or employed in or in connection with a mine is said to be working or employed –

(a) “below ground” if he is working or employed –

(i) in a shaft which has been or is in the course of being sunk; or

(ii) in any excavation which extends below superjacent ground; and 

(b) “above ground” if he is working in open cast working or any other manner not specified in clause (a)

3. (1) Act not apply in certain cases – The provisions of this Act, except those contained in sections 7,8,9, 40,45 and 46 shall not apply to –

(b) any mine or part thereof in which excavation is being made for prospecting purposes only and not for the purpose of obtaining minerals for use or sale :

Provided that –

(i)not more than twenty persons are employed on any one day in connection with any such excavation.

(ii)the depth of the excavation measured from its highest to its lowest point nowhere exceeds six, metres or, in the case of an excavation for coal fifteen metres: and

(iii) no part of such excavation extends below superjacent ground; or

(b) any mine engaged in the extraction of kankar, murrum laterite, boulder, gravel, shingle, ordinary sand (excluding moulding sand, glass sand and other mineral sands), ordinary clay (excluding kaolin, china clay, white clay or fire clay), building stone, slate, road metal, earthy fullers earth, marl chalk and lime stone.

To be continue,,,,

Provided that –

(i) the working do not extend below superjacent ground: or (ii)where it is an open cast working –

(a)the depth of the excavation measured from its highest to its lowest point nowhere exceeds six metres;

(b)the number of persons employed on any one day does not exceed fifty; and

(c)explosives are not used in connection with the excavation.

(2) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1) the Central Government may, if it is satisfied that, having regard to the circumstances obtaining in relation to mine or part thereof or ground or class of mines, it is necessary or desirable so to do by notification in the official Gazette, declare that any of the provisions of this Act, not set out in sub-section (10, shall apply to any such mine or part thereof or group of class of mines or any class of persons employed therein.

(3) Without prejudice to the provisions contained in sub-section (2), if at any time any of the conditions specified in the provision to clause (a) or clause (b) of sub-section (1) is not fulfilled in relation to any mine referred to in that sub-section the provisions of this Act not get out in sub-section (1), shall become immediately applicable, and it shall be the duty of the owner, agent or manager of the mine to inform the prescribed authority in the prescribed manner and within the prescribed time about the non-fulfilment.

(4) Reference to time of day – In this Act, reference to time of day are reference to Indian standard time, being five and a half hours ahead of Green which mean time:

Provided that, for any area in Indian standard time is not ordinarily observed, the Central Government may make rules –

(a) specifying the area;

(b) defining the local mean time ordinarily observed therein; and

(c) permitting such time to be observed in all or any of the mines situated in the area.