Working Hours and Legal Compliance
It is legally okay provided you work for 5 days a week. At the same time, if you have six days in a week, you will be working for 8.5 x 6 or 51 hours, which is not allowed. Now, a day of 9 hours or 8 hours and 30 minutes excluding lunchtime is okay for a day or two, but when it crosses 48 hours, it cannot be right as per law. If you work for more than 48 hours a week, normally, employees will be eligible for overtime wages.
However, nothing stated above will apply to persons holding managerial responsibilities and powers. Moreover, in any service organization, you can have flexible work timing wherein this 9 hours' working can be interpreted as 9 hours spread over. Spread over means the total hours an employee spends in a workplace, and this would include intervals for tea, lunch, and other entertainments. If you have a 30-minute lunch and, say, 15 minutes each for morning and evening tea, naturally, the working hours will be 8 hours only, and then the time will be within the law. Obviously, in an office, which is entirely different from a factory setup where each idle time is recorded, and a worker going out of the workplace is recorded by means of an outpass, this will not count much. However, for legal aspects, this 30 minutes will make a difference.
Regards, Madhu.T.K