Section 3 of the Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 prohibits, subject…

Under section 2(ii) of the Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, as amended in 2016, a "child" is a person who has not completed his fourteenth year of age or such age as may be specified in the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, whichever is more. Section 3(1) provides that no child shall be employed or permitted to work in any occupation or process; section 3(2) allows only limited exceptions, namely helping his family or family enterprise (other than in the hazardous occupations or processes set out in the Schedule) after school hours or during vacations, and working as an artist in the audio-visual entertainment industry or in sports activities, except the circus. The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 does not contain its own prohibition: it adopts this Act's definition of "adolescent" (section 2(1)(a)) and requires the working hours of adolescent workers to be regulated under this Act (section 25(4)) (formerly section 67 of the Factories Act, 1948 prohibited the employment in a factory of children who had not completed fourteen years).

The eighteenth year marks the upper limit of adolescence (a person who has completed fourteen but not eighteen years). The sixteenth and twelfth years are not the limits fixed for a child.