Algorithmic Termination of Platform Gig Workers and the Constitutional Case for a Right to Reasoned Decision-Making in India

The Indian platform economy engages an estimated 7.7 million gig workers, a figure the NITI Aayog projects will reach 23.5 million by 2029-30. Managerial functions once performed by human supervisors — allocation, evaluation, discipline, and termination — have migrated to algorithmic systems. Termination is the most consequential: a worker whose account is deactivated by an automated calculation loses her livelihood instantaneously, without notice, reasons, or a hearing. This article examines India’s legal response to that phenomenon. The research problem is the mismatch between a constitutional order that guarantees procedural fairness in every decision affecting livelihood and a regulatory landscape that permits private aggregators to terminate work relationships by code. The article maps the phenomenon of algorithmic deactivation, evaluates the present Indian statutory and judicial framework, draws comparative lessons from the United Kingdom, the European Union, Spain, and California, and proposes specific reforms. The methodology is doctrinal-analytical, supplemented by comparative analysis, and tested against the natural justice standard in Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India. The article finds a Union-level statutory vacuum, an emerging but geographically confined State response led by the Karnataka Platform Based Gig Workers Bill, 2025, and a judicial landscape in transition following the Karnataka High Court’s engagement with platform employment in Ms. X v. ANI Technologies. On that basis it recommends six reforms, centred on a procedural rights provision in the Code on Social Security, 2020, an algorithmic transparency obligation under the Information Technology Rules, 2021, and a dedicated Central Digital Labour Grievance Tribunal empowered to order interim reactivation.