Dear Collegue,
Sharing the case recitation on Gratuity:
In a relief to daily wage-earners who get regularised, the Supreme Court has ruled that such employees would be entitled to gratuity for the entire period of service and not just from the day of regularisation, as is the case now. The only catch is that they must have been in service continuously.
A bench of Justices R K Agrawal and Abhay Manohar Sapre quashed the order of the Chhattisgarh HC which had held that gratuity was to be decided on the basis of tenure of service on regular job and period of daily wage earning was not to be considered. The HC had dismissed a plea of a state government employee, Netram Sahu, who had worked continuously for around 22 years as daily wager and thereafter his job was regularised and he worked for another 3 years before retirement.
The state government took the stand that the employee, working with the water resources department, could not be held eligible to claim the gratuity because out of the total period of 25 years of his service, he worked 22 years as daily wager and only 3 years as regular employee. It urged that he could not be said to have worked continuously for a period of 5 years as provided under the Act so as to make him eligible to claim gratuity.
HC agrees with the submission of the state government and refused to grant relief to the employee. He moved the Supreme Court through his advocate Anshuman Srivastava challenging the HC’s decision.
After hearing both the parties, the Supreme court said that HC erred in deciding the case against Sahu and quashed the verdict. “We do not agree with the submission of the state for more than one reason. First, the appellant has actually rendered the service for a period of 25 years. Second, the state actually regularized his services by passing the order. Third, having regularised the services, the appellant became entitled to claim its benefit for counting the period of 22 years regardless of the post and the capacity on which he worked for 22 years. Fourth, no provision under the Act was brought to our notice which disentitled him from claiming the gratuity nor any provision was brought to our notice which prohibits him from taking benefit of his continuous period of 22 years of service, which he rendered prior to his regularisation for calculating his continuous service of 5 years,” the bench said.
From India, Mumbai
589Sharing the case recitation on Gratuity:
In a relief to daily wage-earners who get regularised, the Supreme Court has ruled that such employees would be entitled to gratuity for the entire period of service and not just from the day of regularisation, as is the case now. The only catch is that they must have been in service continuously.
A bench of Justices R K Agrawal and Abhay Manohar Sapre quashed the order of the Chhattisgarh HC which had held that gratuity was to be decided on the basis of tenure of service on regular job and period of daily wage earning was not to be considered. The HC had dismissed a plea of a state government employee, Netram Sahu, who had worked continuously for around 22 years as daily wager and thereafter his job was regularised and he worked for another 3 years before retirement.
The state government took the stand that the employee, working with the water resources department, could not be held eligible to claim the gratuity because out of the total period of 25 years of his service, he worked 22 years as daily wager and only 3 years as regular employee. It urged that he could not be said to have worked continuously for a period of 5 years as provided under the Act so as to make him eligible to claim gratuity.
HC agrees with the submission of the state government and refused to grant relief to the employee. He moved the Supreme Court through his advocate Anshuman Srivastava challenging the HC’s decision.
After hearing both the parties, the Supreme court said that HC erred in deciding the case against Sahu and quashed the verdict. “We do not agree with the submission of the state for more than one reason. First, the appellant has actually rendered the service for a period of 25 years. Second, the state actually regularized his services by passing the order. Third, having regularised the services, the appellant became entitled to claim its benefit for counting the period of 22 years regardless of the post and the capacity on which he worked for 22 years. Fourth, no provision under the Act was brought to our notice which disentitled him from claiming the gratuity nor any provision was brought to our notice which prohibits him from taking benefit of his continuous period of 22 years of service, which he rendered prior to his regularisation for calculating his continuous service of 5 years,” the bench said.
From India, Mumbai
Time and again, the Apex Court's advice to the State both Central and State Govts that the State should thrive to be a model employer in labor matters goes unheeded due to the parochial attitude of the high ranking Govt. officials. Very particularly, the remnant of the Colonial Ruler's attitude is shamelessly exhibited by them towards the regularisation of the services of the contingent employees who have been on Nominal Muster Rolls almost for a life time whether in Govt departments or quasi Govt. industrial organizations. These people have the audacity to misinterpret any such judgments favouring regularisation of the individuals from the date of their very entry as applicable only to the appellants of those particular cases and not for others. They conveniently forget that public administration is nothing but ideal governance based on good precedents and judicious priorities only. To explain the callousness of the bureaucracy further with another example, if the appellants' services were pensionable and they demand pension benefits based on the same judgment, the Govt would certainly reject the demand simply based on the plea that the judgment covers the issue of gratuity only and would refuse to apply the ratio decidendi to other issues and others as well!
From India, Salem
From India, Salem
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Gratuity to teachers - Revised SC order.pdf
Gratuity on Retrenchment in closure of unit-SC judgment.docx