Bengaluru: Karnataka has amended its Shops and Commercial Establishments law, deleting a set of provisions that prescribed specific transport, monitoring and security safeguards for women employees working night shifts, prompting criticism from the Karnataka State IT/ITeS Employees Union (KITU).
The Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments (Amendment) Act, 2026, which received the Governor’s assent earlier this month and came into force following its publication, has omitted clauses 25(1)(h) to 25(1)(o) of the parent law.
The removed clauses had laid down detailed conditions for employers engaging women during night hours, including driver verification, route monitoring, travel-desk or control-room arrangements, random checks of vehicles and security-guard deployment in certain pickup and drop situations.
They also covered confidentiality of women employees’ personal contact details and addresses, besides a provision intended to ensure that a woman employee was not the first pickup or the last drop during company-arranged transport.
KITU condemned the move, alleging that the deletion of the provisions would dilute safeguards for women workers, particularly in the information technology and IT-enabled services sectors where employees frequently work late-evening and overnight shifts.
“The amendment removes key safeguards relating to transportation, driver verification, route monitoring and security escorts for women working night shifts,” the union said in a statement circulated on social media.
The union urged the Karnataka government to restore the provisions, arguing that employee safety cannot be treated as a compliance burden for establishments.
The amendment, however, does not remove all legal conditions relating to the employment of women during night shifts. Other provisions under Section 25 of the Act continue to apply, while employers may also be subject to obligations under other labour, workplace-safety and sexual-harassment laws.
Apart from changes to Section 25, the 2026 amendment provides for lifetime validity of registration for establishments and introduces other procedural and compliance-related changes.
The state government has not immediately issued a detailed public explanation on why the eight clauses relating to night-shift safeguards were omitted.