Delay Payment Of Gratuity For Death Cases

Dear All,
Could you please help me, there is a delay in payment of Gratuity for one off our death employee. Delay is due to in getting post murder report.
As an employer, should pay the interest for delayed days irrespective of reasons ? Plz confirm.
Best regards,
Yallappa S

Interest is required to be paid if there is a delay, irrespective of the reason. But if the reason of delay is genuine you may try to settle the amount with the nominee/ legal heir.

Did you received the Death Certificate of the deceased ? If yes then the Gratuity Amount should not be delayed, am yet to know what is the connection of Post Morterm report with Gratuity. Provision PM report is given within 24 hours of the PM, the detailed PM may be delayed but that should not hamper the Gratuity Payment to the best of my belief.

I'd like to request a conjunctive reading of sec.4(1) and sec.7(3) and (3-A) of the Payment of Gratuity Act,1972. Section 4(1) lays down that gratuity shall be payable to an employee on the termination of his employment due to the events and subject to the conditions specified therein. Therefore, immediately upon the happening of any such of the events or the contingencies, the employer's liability to pay gratuity commences. Sec.7(3) mandates the employer to arrange to pay the amount of gratuity, within 30 days from the date it becomes payable to the person to whom the gratuity is payable. If not the liability to pay interest commences from the date it actually became payable as per sec.7(3-A). To avoid the interest burden, it is always better to deposit the gratuity amount with the Controlling Authority as immediately as possible within 30 days of the date it becomes payable in case of any difficulty.

What Gratuity Act says if a employee is superannuated but not completed 190/240 days service in any year during his service period. Whether he is eligible for gratuity?

All employees irrespective of status or salary on rendering of 5 years’ service, either termination, resignation or retirement are entitled for Gratuity. In case of Death or disablement continous 5 years service is not required.

Dear Hotgautam,
In such a situation, the employee is not entitled to gratuity only for that particular year as he would not have completed one year of continuous service as per sec.2-A(2)(a)(i) or (ii).

Thanks Umakanthan Sir, but the main issue is we did not take any disciplinary actions during his service period(like issuing letter regarding terming his absenteeism period as break in service) as per section 2A(1)which reads as : an employee shall be said to be in continuous service for a period if he has, for that period, been in uninterrupted service, including service which may be interrupted on account of sickness, accident, leave, absence from duty without leave (not being absence in respect of which an order treating the absence as break in service has been passed in accordance with the standing order, rules or regulations governing the employees of the establishment). No doubt he is eligible for gratuity but whether any gratuity amount is payable to him in the year having less than 190 attendance.
Warm regards

Dear Hotgautam,
The fixation of 190 days and 240 days respectively as the minimum no of days to be deemed as actually worked days is establishment-specific as mentioned in sub cl (i) and (ii) of cl (a) of sec.2-A(2) and not to be interchangeable.

Respected Umakanthan Sir,
Thanks again for quick response. The case is-An employee was appointed as casual whose confirmation was on the condition that he had to put minimum 190 days attendance in a year(our establishment being an UG Mine). He never completed 190 days during his service period as such his status as a casual employee remained throughout. He was superannuated after reaching the age of 60 years. now he is claiming gratuity. We are of the opinion that since he never completed 190 days attendance in any year during his service period, there is no computable gratuity payable to the employee concerned.Kindly advise.
Regards
Gautam