Payment Of Unused Earned Leaves

Priyesh Sagar
Dear Friends, I work with a Pvt Ltd company based out of Ahmedabad, Gujarat. We are a trading company / agency house and not a manufacturing company with total employee strength of around 55-60 persons and are governed by Shop and Establishment Act and not factory Act. I have been working with this company for 15 years and our company never paid for unused Earned leaves to employees for years. 4 years back, the company decided that for any unused Earned leave for the year ( 30 leaves allowed), the company shall pay the employees and this system was followed for 2 years.
Suddenly the management decided to stop this payment stating that some employee has misused the facility !!!
The management has taken no action against this employee whom they say has misused the facility but has stopped payment to all other honest employees !!!
Would like to know whether there is any legal provision wherein we can claim for these unused leaves by various employees???
Suresh Rathi
Dear ANNONYMOUS

Am reproducing extract of act applicable in Gujarat.

Hope this will clarify position with regards to accumulation of EL and encashment.

You may , in case you so want go to labour court to seek redress.

Col.Rathi

Section 35 - Leave

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1[(1)(a) Subject to the provisions of clause (b), every employee who has been employed for not less than three months in any year, shall for every 60 days on which he has worked during the year be allowed leave, consecutive or otherwise, for a period of not less than five days;

(b) every employee who has worked for not less than two hundred and forty days, during a year shall be allowed leave, consecutive or otherwise, for a period of not less than twenty--one days :

Provided that such leave may be accumulated up to & maximum period of2[sixty-three days].

Explanation.--The leave allowed to an employee under clauses (a) and (b) shall be inclusive of the day or days during the period of such leave on which a shop or commercial establishment remains closed under section 18, or on which he is entitled to a holiday under sub-section (1) of section 24 or section 31.]

3[(1A) Every employee who has accumulated leave shall, when he goes on leave for a period of not less than twenty-one days, be entitled to surrender, out of the balance of leave remaining to his credit on the commencement of his leave, any period of leave, not exceeding twenty-one days; and such employee shall, for the period of leave so surrendered by him, be lentitled to payment of wages as if the leave so surrendered had been allowed to him under sub-section (1) :

Provided that no employee shall be entitled to surrender leave under this sub-section more than once in any period of two years.

(1B) In addition to the leave permissible under sub-section (1), every employee shall be entitled to leave with wages as follows :--

(i) casual leave for seven days in a year,

(ii) leave on medical grounds for not more than seven days in a year, and

(iii) leave for not more than four days in a year on any of the days which the State Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, specify to be the National and Festival holidays.]

(2) If an employee entitled to leave under sub-section (1)4[retires, resigns or]5[* *] is discharged by his employer before he has been allowed the leave, or if, having applied for and having been refused the leave, he quits his employment before he has been allowed the leave, the employer shall pay him the amount payable under section 36 in respect of the leave.

(3) If an employee entitled to leave under sub-section (1)5[* *] is refused the leave, he may give intimation to the Inspector or any other officer authorised in this behalf by the6[State] Government regarding such refusal. The Inspector" shall enter such intimation in a register kept in such form as may be prescribed.
Priyesh Sagar
Dear Col sab,
Thanks and well noted.
However if an employee does not take leave and they accumulate over a period of time, is there any legal provision under which he can ask for encashment of these leaves???
saswatabanerjee
It is actually a better idea to use the leaves. The leaves are given to allow employees to refresh themselves, take rest. To avoid taking leaves just to earn some more money is not a good idea. Many companies today have started implementing a no-carry-forward rule just for that purpose.
In your case, the company probably figured out that the costs are too high.
At best you can get what the law allows - 21 says in 2 years.
You can't fight the management on this. Any intervention of labour Court will take years and prove costly for you. And definitely in the kind of company you work, you will lose your job.
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