Staff Holidays In Rajasthan - Rajasthan Shops And Commercial Establishments Act, 1958.

We have less than 20 staff in Jaipur and appear to be covered by Rajasthan Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1958.

The Act says that we need to give our staff 20 days annual leave (section 14. Annual leave with wages. (1) Every employee who has worked for a period of 240 days or more in an establishment during a calendar year shall be allowed during the subsequent calendar year, leave with wages for a number of days calculated at the rate of (i) if an adult, one day for every twelve days of work performed by him during the previous calendar year.

We currently give our staff 3 National Holidays, 8 festival days and 15 earned leave. Staff work 5 days per week and the 1st Saturday each month for 5 hours.

I'd like to know please if:

* The 20 days in the Act covers festival days and earned leave;

* Our holidays are fair compared to other parts of India.

Is there any way that a company policy can over-ride this?

It is not 20 leaves but it should be one leave per 12 days physically present in the previous calendar year. The significance of 240 days is that this is the minimum days required to be present in order to be qualified for leave in the current year. Again this 240 days is the pay days which will include all holidays, maternity leave days or leave availed by the employee in the previous year. In your example, you should have approximately 276 working days in a year. That is, 30 minus 7 weekly offs in a month multiplied by 12. These weekly off days will be counted as days worked for the purpose of deciding the eligibility of employees for leave in the subsequent year as these days are also PAID days. Therefore, an employee who will remain on leave without pay for more than 125 days only will be disentitled for leave in the succeeding year.

Take another example; an employee has worked for 136 days in 2015, he had availed leave with pay for 20 days and was obviously on weekly off for 84 days (7 days in a month). He will be eligible for leave in 2016 because his paid days in 2015 is 240 days. Though he had worked for 240 days for the purpose of ELIGIBILITY, he will get leave only on the basis of ACTUAL DAYS PHYSICALLY PRESENT and that is 136/ 12 or 11 days.

Supposing that he has worked for all the days, ie, 276 days, his leave for the year 2016 would be 23 days. The leave you have fixed is to be revised according to the pattern above mentioned in order to make it as per law.

The leaves above mentioned will not cover the National and Festival Holidays. Holidays are regulated by separate state Act. Unfortunately, I don't find that there is any Holiday Act for Rajastan but most of the other states have such Act to regulate holidays. In the absence of separate Act (please confirm if it is so) the holidays that you give seem to be okay but don't think that your holidays are fair compared to other parts of India. Please remember that Kerala has 13 days holidays (4 National Holidays and 9 Festival Holidays) in a year and the employees in shops and commercial establishments in Kerala has 36 days leave per year!!!

Madhu.T.K