THE MINES ACT, 1952

(Act No. 35 of 1952 )

(15 March, 1952)
(As modified upto 1983)

Presented By: Mitika Mahajan(142)

Heema Rajguru(175)
Objective

 An Act to amend and consolidate the law

relating to the Regulation of labour and
safety in mines.

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Short title, extent and
commencement

 This Act may be called the Mines Act, 1952.

 It extends to whole of India
 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.
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Definitions
(b)Adult: 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: The Chief Inspector of Mines appointed
under this Act;
(e) Committee: A committee constituted under section 12
(f) Day: A period of twenty-four hours beginning at mid-night;
(g) District magistrate: 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
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 (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 dispatch 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
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 iv. in operations , within the premises of the mine of
loading for dispatch 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;

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 (i) Inspector: 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;

(j) Mine: 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:
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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 there from;
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;
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 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;

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x. any premises for the time being used for depositing sand
or other material for us e 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: 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)

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 (k ) Office of the mine: any office at the surface of the
mine concerned;
(kk) Open cast working: 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.

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 (l)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
license 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;
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 (m) Prescribed: means prescribed by rules, regulation or
bylaws, as the case may ;

(n) Qualified medical practitioner: means a medical

practitioner who possesses any recognized 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

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 (o) regulations, rules and by-laws: means respectively
regulations, rules and by laws made under this Act;
(p) Relay: 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 (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.

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 (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.

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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)
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Non-applicability of the Act

The Act is not applicable to:

 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:
 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,
earth, fullers earth, marl chalk and limestone:

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MINING OPERATIONS AND
MANAGEMENT OF MINES
16. Notice to be given of mining operations –
(1) The owner, agent or manager of a mine shall, before the
commencement of any mining operation, give to the
Chief Inspector, the Controller, Indian Bureau of Mines
and the District Magistrate of the district in which the
mine is situated, notice in writing in such form and
containing such particulars relating to the mine, as may
be prescribed.
(2) Any notice given under sub-section (1) shall be so given
as to reach the persons concerned at least one month
before the commencement of any noting operation.

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17. (1) Managers- Save as may be otherwise prescribed, every mine shall be
under a sole manager who shall have the prescribed qualifications and
the owner or agent of every mine shall appoint a person having such
qualifications to be the manager:
Provided that the owner or agent may appoint himself as manager if he
possesses the prescribed qualifications.
(2) Subject to any instruction given to him by or on behalf of the owner or
agent of the mine, the manager shall be responsible for the overall
management, control, supervision and direction of the mine and all such
instructions when given by the owner or agent shall be confirmed in
writing forthwith.
(3) Except in case of an emergency, the owner or agent of a mine or anyone
on his behalf shall not give otherwise than through the manager,
instructions affecting the fulfillment of his statutory duties, to a persons,
employed in a mine, who is responsible to the manager.
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18. Duties and responsibilities of owners, agents and
managers :-
(1) the owner and agent of every mine shall each be responsible
for making financial and other provisions and for taking such
other steps as may be necessary for compliance with the
provisions of this Act and the regulations, rules, bye-laws and
orders made there under.
(2) The responsibility in respect of matters provided for in the
rules made under clauses (d), (e) and (p) of section 58 shall be
exclusively carried out by the owner and agent of the mine and
by such person (other than the manager) whom the owner or
agent may appoint for securing compliance with the aforesaid
provisions.
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(3) If the carrying out of any instructions given under sub-section
(2) or given otherwise than through the manager under sub-
section(3) of section 17 results in the contravention of the
provisions of this Act or of the regulations, rules, bye-laws or
orders made thereunder, every person giving such instructions
shall also be liable for the contravention of the provision
concerned.
(4) Subject to the provisions of sub-sections(1), (2) and (3) the
owner, agent and manager of every mine shall each be
responsible to see that all operations carried on in connection
with the mine are conducted in accordance with the provisions
of this Act and of the regulations, rules, bye-laws and orders
made thereunder.
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 (5) In the event of any contravention by any person whosoever of any of
the provisions of this Act or of the regulations; rules, bye-laws or
orders made thereunder except those which specifically require any
person to do any act or thing, or prohibit any person from doing an act
or thing, besides the person who contravenes, each of the following
persons shall also be deemed to be guilty of such contravention unless
he proves that he had used bue diligence to secure compliance with
the provisions and had taken reasonable means to prevent such
contravention:
(i) the official or officials appointed to perform duties of supervision in
respect of the provisions contravened;
(ii) the manager of the mine;
(iii) the owner and agent of the mine;
(iv) the person appointed, if any, to carry out the responsibility under
sub-section (2). Provided that any of the persons aforesaid may not be
proceeded against if it appears on enquiry and investigation that he is
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 (6) It shall not be a defence in any proceedings brought
against the owner or agent of a mine under this section
that the manager and other official have been appointed
in accordance with the provisions of this Act or that a
person to carry the responsibility under sub-section (2)
has been appointed."

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