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Apprentices Act, 1961

Section 22: Offer and acceptance of employment

Section 22 of the Apprentices Act, 1961 explained with current 2025-26 amendments, employer controls, evidence and connected Rules.

Law Hub L8Data reviewed on 17 July 2026India-first compliance

What section 22 does

Clarifies that post-training employment depends on the contract and is not automatically mandatory.

Connected instrument: Contract terms

Finin2min practical reading

  • Identify the apprentice category, trade, establishment jurisdiction and applicable portal before applying the provision.
  • Separate statutory apprenticeship from internships, probation, traineeships and ordinary employment.
  • Do not treat scheme reimbursement as a substitute for the employer’s underlying statutory obligations.
  • Preserve the contract, approvals, portal trail and training evidence as one auditable file.

Employer control and evidence pack

  • Executed/registered contract and portal acknowledgement
  • Training plan, attendance/work diary and supervisor records
  • Stipend bank/DBT evidence where relevant
  • Adviser approval, correspondence or order where the section requires it

Statutory text extract

Extracted from the bundled official/consolidated source. For sections amended in 2026, the current overlay above controls over older consolidated wording.

22. Offer and acceptance of employment.—1[(1) Every employer shall formulate its own policy for
recruiting any apprentice who has completed the period of apprenticeship training in his establishment.]
    (2) Notwithstanding anything in sub-section (1), where there is a condition in a contract of
apprenticeship that the apprentice shall, after the successful completion of the apprenticeship training,
serve the employer, the employer shall, on such completion, be bound to offer suitable employment to the
apprentice, and the apprentice shall be bound to serve the employer in that capacity for such period and
on such remuneration as may be specified in the contract:
    Provided that where such period or remuneration is not, in the opinion of the Apprenticeship Adviser,
reasonable, he may revise such period or remuneration so as to make it reasonable, and the period or
remuneration so revised shall be deemed to be the period or remuneration agreed to between the
apprentice and the employer.
                                                            CHAPTER III
                                                            AUTHORITIES

Compliance consequence

Failure should be tested against sections 30, 31 and 31A as in force from 22 June 2026, alongside contract termination/compensation consequences and any portal or scheme action.

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