What India’s Right To Disconnect bill means — and how other countries acted first

India has joined a growing global debate on work–life boundaries after a new proposal in Parliament sought to give employees the legal right to disconnect from work outside office hours. The move comes against a backdrop of intensifying exhaustion in white-collar work and renewed scrutiny of “always-on” corporate cultures.

NCP-SP MP Supriya Sule introduced the Right to Disconnect Bill, 2025, in the Lok Sabha on Friday. The Bill aims to formally recognise that workers should not be compelled to respond to calls, messages or emails after working hours — and should face no disciplinary action for ignoring them.

The proposal arrives at a moment when some corporate leaders have publicly advocated longer hours, even as evidence mounts about the psychological and physical strains of continuous availability. The Bill’s explanatory note cites research linking round-the-clock responsiveness to sleep deprivation, emotional fatigue and heightened “telepressure”, a term used to describe the compulsion to check and respond to digital communication at all times.

What the Bill proposes

The legislation seeks to create clear boundaries without cutting companies off from operational needs. Key provisions include:

• Employees are not obliged to answer work calls or emails after hours.
  
  

• Companies cannot penalise workers for not responding.
  
  

• Employers may contact employees in negotiated “out-of-work periods”, such as in emergencies.
  
  

• Organisations must set up Employees’ Welfare Committees to define these protocols.
  
  

• Workers who choose to reply to after-hours communications must receive overtime pay at the normal rate.
  
  

• Non-compliance could draw a penalty equal to 1% of total employee remuneration.
  
  

The proposal also calls on state governments to establish “digital detox centres” to provide counselling on healthy technology use. To oversee implementation, the Bill recommends creating an Employees’ Welfare Authority comprising representatives from the labour, electronics and communications ministries.

How the world has approached the right to disconnect

India’s proposal follows nearly a decade of international experimentation with laws governing after-hours availability.

France became the first country to formally adopt the right to disconnect in 2017, requiring employers to ensure workers are not expected to respond outside normal hours. Some companies there have even blocked after-hours email access to enforce compliance.

Belgium, Argentina, the Philippines and Australia have since passed similar measures. Australia adopted its law in 2024, extending protections to millions of workers in a labour market grappling with burnout and rising mental-health concerns. New York City considered a similar Bill in 2018, though it did not advance into law.

Across jurisdictions, the underlying principle remains similar: modern digital tools may boost flexibility, but they erode the boundary between work and personal life unless explicitly regulated.

Sule has introduced versions of this Bill twice before, and her advocacy intensified following the death of a 26-year-old chartered accountant in 2024 whose family alleged she succumbed to extreme work stress. At the time, Sule argued that India must modernise labour protections in line with rapid digitisation.

India currently operates a 48-hour work week — among the longest globally — making the debate on work–life boundaries especially relevant. As Parliament evaluates the proposal, companies, HR leaders and labour experts are likely to scrutinise how the Bill could reshape workplace norms and compliance obligations.

The broader question now is whether India will join the handful of countries that have formally recognised a worker’s right to switch off — and what the shift could mean for employers navigating the demands of a hyper-connected economy.