Even if remuneration is paid, labour supplied by a person would be hit by
Article 23 if it is forced labour, that is, labour supplied not willingly but as a result of force or compulsion. For example, where a person has entered into a contract of service with another for a period of three years and he wishes to discontinue serving such other person before the expiration of the period of three years, if a law were to provide that in such a case the contract shall be specifically enforced and he shall be compelled to serve for the full period of three years, it would clearly amount to forced labour and such a law would be void as offending
Article 23. That is why specific performance of a contract of service cannot be enforced against an employee and the employee cannot be forced by compulsion of law to continue to serve the employer. Of course, if there is a breach of the contract of service, the employee would be liable to pay damages to the employer but he cannot be forced to continue to serve the employer without breaching the injunction of
Article 23. [487 H; 488 A-D] Baily v. Alabama, 219 US 219:55 Law Ed. 191; quoted with approval/
Even if a person has contracted with another to perform service and there is consideration for such service in the shape of liquidation of debt or even remuneration, he cannot be forced by compulsion of law or otherwise, to continue to perform such service, as that would be forced labour within the inhibition of
Article 23, which strikes at every form of forced labour even if it has its origin in a contract voluntarily entered into by the person obligated to provide labour or service, for the reasons, namely; (i) it offends against human dignity to compel a person to provide labour or service to another if he does not wish to do so, even though it be breach of the contract entered into by him; (ii) there should be no serfdom or involuntary servitude in a free democratic India which respects the dignity of the individual and the worth of the human person; (iii) in a country like India where there is so much poverty and unemployment and
there is no equality of bargaining power, a contract of service may on its face voluntary but it may, in reality, be involuntary, because while entering into the contract the employee by reason of his economically helpless condition, may have been faced with Hobson's choice, either to starve or to submit to the exploitative terms dictated by the powerful employer. It would be a travesty of justice to hold the employee in such a case to the terms of the contract and to compel him to serve the employer even though he may not wish to do so.
[...]
It is a fact that in a capitalist society
economic circumstances exert much greater pressure on an individual in driving him to a particular course of action than physical compulsion or force of legislative provision. The word 'force' must therefore be construed to include not only physical or legal force but force arising from the compulsion of economic circumstances which leaves no choice of alternatives to a person in want and compels him to provide labour or service even though the remuneration received for it is less than the minimum wage.