Fixed-Term Employment Wage Parity in India: High Court Jurisprudence & Labour Codes Explained
The Illusion of Flexibility and the Reality of Parity For years, the phrase "fixed-term employment" carried a distinct, uncomfortable weight in Indian industrial relations. It was often viewed by workers as a euphemism for job insecurity and by a section of employers as a convenient mechanism to bypass the legal obligations attached to permanent headcount. The central question was simple: if an individual is hired for a fixed period of one or two years to perform the exact same job as a permanent colleague, can the employer pay them lower wages simply because their contract carries an expiry date? The higher judiciary has consistently answered this question in the negative, and the statutory architecture under India’s four Labour Codes formalizes and codifies that principle into binding law. However, the interaction between High Court and Supreme Court jurisprudence and the statutory text reveals a carefully balanced landscape: one where statutory parity in ...
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