Indian Federation of App-Based Transport Workers v. Union of India: the gig worker petition

The facts in brief

The Indian Federation of App-Based Transport Workers (IFAT) was formed in 2019 as a trade union representing app-based transport and delivery workers across the principal Indian aggregator platforms. By September 2021 the Federation's membership reached approximately 35,000 — drivers on Ola and Uber, and delivery workers on Swiggy and Zomato.

The catalytic events were the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020 and 2021. App-based drivers and delivery workers had been classified as essential workers during the lockdowns but had no statutory protective framework around that classification. IFAT organised peaceful protests in June 2020 demanding personal protective equipment, hazard pay, and improved compensation structures. The aggregators provided limited PPE support but declined to revise compensation frameworks. The structural fact that the protests exposed was that gig workers — who occupied a hybrid space between traditional employment and independent contracting — fell outside the protective machinery of the Industrial Disputes Act 1947, the Employees' Provident Funds Act 1952, the Employees' State Insurance Act 1948 and the related labour-protective architecture.

On 9 September 2021 IFAT filed Writ Petition (Civil) No. 1068 of 2021 under Article 32 of the Constitution. Individual driver-petitioners Tulasi Jagdish Babu (an Ola driver) and Kaushar Khan (a former Ola and Uber driver) joined the petition. The respondents include the Union of India and the four principal aggregator platforms — ANI Technologies (Ola), Uber India, Bundl Technologies (Swiggy), and Zomato Ltd. Senior counsel for the petitioners is Dr S. Muralidhar — the former Delhi High Court judge, now Senior Advocate — with Ms Nupur Kumar as Advocate on Record.

The petition seeks recognition of gig workers as "unorganised workers" under the Unorganised Workers' Social Security Act 2008, operational implementation of Chapter IX of the Code on Social Security 2020 — covering health insurance, maternity benefits, pension and old-age assistance, disability allowance, and accident cover — and, during the pandemic period, interim relief by way of cash transfers (₹1,175 per day for app-based drivers and ₹675 per day for delivery workers until the pandemic subsided), and priority COVID-19 vaccination at aggregator cost.

Notice was issued by the bench of L. Nageswara Rao J. and B.R. Gavai J. on 13 December 2021, returnable in four weeks. The case has since been heard repeatedly without a merits ruling.

The question

The central doctrinal question is whether gig and platform workers are "workers" or "workmen" within the Indian labour-law architecture — and whether the Centre is constitutionally bound to operationalise the statutory framework that the Code on Social Security 2020 has erected for them.

Several sub-questions sit within it. The first is the employer-employee versus partner-contractor classification battle. Aggregators contract with drivers and delivery workers as "partners" — but the substantive control exercised by the platforms is consistent with employment. Algorithmic allocation of orders and rides; ratings-based deactivation; dynamic pricing of services without driver negotiating power; performance metrics that determine onboarding, continued access, and termination — these are the structural markers of an employment relationship, dressed in contractual language that denies it.

The second is the Article 14 equality question. The exclusion of gig workers from social security creates a discriminatory category of "informal-but-dependent" workers — workers who are substantively controlled by an employer-like entity but denied the protective machinery that attaches to employment.

The third is the Article 21 livelihood question. The right to life with dignity reaches livelihood security — the foundation that Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation (1985) 3 SCC 545 established for the urban poor — and is invoked here for the gig workforce.

The fourth is the Article 23 anti-exploitation question. Where the platform exercises substantive control without supplying the protective machinery that attaches to control, the arrangement may approach the constitutional concept of forced labour that People's Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of India (1982) 3 SCC 235 developed for minimum-wage non-payment.

The fifth is the implementation-gap question. The Code on Social Security 2020 received Presidential assent on 28 September 2020. Chapter IX (sections 113-114) created the statutory framework for gig and platform workers — the Social Security Fund, the aggregator contribution, the registration architecture. The operationalising rules and schemes remained partially un-notified for years. The petition asks whether the Centre's continuing failure to operationalise the framework is itself a constitutional injury.

The state of play

No merits judgment has been delivered. The petition has nevertheless produced significant interlocutory and observational outcomes, and has anchored a fast-moving regulatory and legislative landscape across the Centre and the states.

Labour and social security rights for gig workers and app-based service providers cannot be denied if a statutory regime provides for such protections.

In the 18 February 2025 hearing the bench observed that the Centre carries an operational obligation once the statutory framework is in place, and called for an affidavit indicating timelines for operationalisation. The Additional Solicitor General confirmed that Chapter IX rules and schemes remained under consideration. The Centre cited the e-Shram registration platform and the draft platform-worker Rules notified on 30 December 2025 as evidence of policy action.

The petition sits at the centre of a fast-evolving regulatory landscape. The Karnataka Platform Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Act 2025 — effective 30 May 2025, Rules notified 19 November 2025, with the Welfare Board constituted on 27 January 2026 — is the first state-level statutory regime to operationalise a dedicated platform-worker framework. The Board, headquartered in Bengaluru, is composed of representatives from the aggregators (Porter, Zomato, Uber, Amazon named) and four representatives from gig-worker unions. Aggregators have forty-five days to complete registration; each registered gig worker receives a unique identification number for benefit disbursal. Maharashtra released its draft Code on Wages Rules for public consultation on 28 April 2026.

The Industrial Relations (Central) Rules 2026, notified on 8 May 2026, operationalised tribunal procedure for the Industrial Relations Code 2020 — though the gig-worker classification question sits structurally outside the IR Code framework and within the Code on Social Security 2020 architecture.

The petition has accordingly become the doctrinal anchor against which state implementation will be measured. A final merits ruling — when it comes — is expected to anchor the classification of platform work in Indian labour law for a generation.

The doctrinal architecture

The petition rests on a five-strand constitutional and statutory framework.

The first strand is the Code on Social Security 2020 Chapter IX architecture. Sections 113 and 114 create the statutory framework for gig and platform workers — the Social Security Fund, the aggregator contribution within a 1-2 per cent of turnover band (with a ceiling at 5 per cent of payments to gig and platform workers), and the registration mechanism. The Code is enacted; the operationalising rules carry the constitutional duty.

The second strand is the substance-over-form principle. The classification of platform workers as "partners" through contractual labelling cannot defeat the substantive control that the platforms exercise. Srinibas Goradia v. Arvind Kumar Sahu (2025 INSC 1467) supplied the most recent restatement of the principle in a workman-classification context: designation or nomenclature is not the guiding factor; the prominent and dominant nature of the work assigned and actually performed governs.

The third strand is the Article 14 equality argument. The exclusion of gig workers from social security creates a discriminatory category that does not survive the equality test. The classification — "platform worker" against "traditional workman" — has no rational nexus with the protective purpose of the Code; the substantive control structure is the same.

The fourth strand is the Article 21 livelihood-and-dignity argument. Olga Tellis supplied the foundation. Livelihood security for the urban poor — and for the gig workforce that has become a substantial segment of the urban poor — is part of the right to life with dignity.

The fifth strand is the Article 23 anti-exploitation argument. Bandhua Mukti Morcha v. Union of India (1984) 3 SCC 161 established the broad reading of the forced-labour concept. People's Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of India (1982) 3 SCC 235 held that minimum-wage non-payment may amount to forced labour. The petitioners argue that substantive control without protective machinery — algorithmic determination of working time, ratings-based deactivation, dynamic pricing imposed without negotiating power — approaches the constitutional concept of forced labour in its modern form.

What is not yet decided

The central doctrinal question — whether gig workers are workers within the constitutional and statutory protective architecture — remains undecided pending the merits ruling.

The classification of aggregators as employers for Industrial Disputes Act, Employees' Provident Funds Act and Employees' State Insurance Act purposes is not addressed. The Code on Social Security 2020's "aggregator" definition operates as a parallel category without disturbing the underlying employer-employee determination. The substantive classification question — whether the aggregators are employers — sits unresolved.

The scope of mandamus the Court will issue against the Centre for operationalising Chapter IX is not settled. Whether timelines can be judicially imposed; whether the Court will direct adoption of state-level pioneer frameworks at the national level; whether the Court will accept the Centre's e-Shram registration and draft Rules as adequate operational progress — these remain to be addressed in the merits ruling.

The algorithmic-control evidentiary record has not been adjudicated. Whether the Court will accept rating-system, deactivation-pattern and dynamic-pricing data as evidence of substantive employer-control sits as a pending evidentiary question.

The aggregator contribution rates — the operational percentage within the Chapter IX 1-2 per cent of turnover / 5 per cent of payments ceiling — remain unsettled in operational implementation.

The interaction with the pending 9-judge bench question on the definition of "industry" under the Industrial Disputes Act — the question reserved earlier and capable of recalibrating the s.2(s) "workman" reach — sits as a parallel doctrinal track that may interlock with the IFAT classification question when both lines deliver.

After the notice

The IFAT petition is the single most consequential pending labour-law matter at the Supreme Court as of mid-2026. The case has shaped — and is shaped by — three parallel tracks.

The first is the Central legislative response. Chapter IX of the Code on Social Security 2020 supplies the statutory framework. The Code's draft Rules notified on 30 December 2025 supply the operational architecture. The Industrial Relations (Central) Rules 2026 notified on 8 May 2026 — though structurally outside the gig-worker framework — signal the operational maturity of the broader post-Codes regime.

The second is the state-level pioneers. The Karnataka Platform Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Act 2025 — with the Welfare Board constituted on 27 January 2026, with representatives from Porter, Zomato, Uber and Amazon and four gig-worker union representatives — is the first state-level statutory regime. Maharashtra's draft Code on Wages Rules released for public consultation on 28 April 2026, Rajasthan's similar 2023 framework, and Telangana and Tamil Nadu following — these supply the implementation template that the apex court may direct adoption of at the national level.

The third is the aggregator policy posture. Industry has accepted contribution-percentage discipline in the state-level frameworks but contested employer classification at the constitutional level. The classification question — partner versus employee — sits unresolved.

A final merits ruling in IFAT v. Union of India is expected to anchor the doctrinal classification of platform work in Indian labour law for a generation. For now the petition supplies the doctrinal anchor against which state-level implementation is being measured — and the live pressure-point on the Centre's operationalisation of the post-Codes social-security architecture.

Related on Valkya

• Bangalore Water Supply v. A. Rajappa: the wide reading of "industry"
• Code on Social Security 2020 — a practitioner read
• Industrial Relations Code 2020 — a practitioner read
• Air India Statutory Corporation v. United Labour Union: contract labour and the employer-classification question

Sources

1. Supreme Court Observer — Gig Workers' Access to Social Security: IFAT v. Union of India case page: https://www.scobserver.in/
2. LiveLaw — "Supreme Court issues notice on gig workers' plea for benefits as workers of apps like Uber, Ola, Zomato, Swiggy" (13 December 2021): https://www.livelaw.in/
3. Bar and Bench coverage — IFAT v. Union of India hearings 2024-2025: https://www.barandbench.com/
4. Supreme Court of India cause-list and case-status — WP(C) 1068/2021: https://www.sci.gov.in/
5. SCC OnLine Blog — "Code on Social Security 2020: Chapter IX gig and platform workers": https://www.scconline.com/
6. Government of Karnataka — Karnataka Platform Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Act 2025 and Welfare Board constitution notification (27 January 2026): https://labour.karnataka.gov.in/