If you follow Bonus law, your act of paying bonus monthly along with wages is illegal because the Payment of Bonus Act provides that bonus pertaining to a financial year can be paid within 8 months of closing the accounts or financial year. Even if you make the payment in installments it can not exceed 8 installments.
We pay bonus of this financial year, ie, 2016-17, in 2017-18. That means your causal workers have been working through out the year 2016-17 and will be working in the next financial year also. Then how can they be called casual? It is true that an employee engaged casually cannot claim regular employee status even if he has worked for years. But that does not mean that these people do not have any right to get bonus and other statutory benefits.
Again, how would you prepare their job card or how would you prepare their wage slip/ voucher for payment? Is it like basic wage and then bonus monthly part? If so, will be effect ESI on that bonus part? If you do not include bonus (monthly bonus) the ESIC will question it because any payment made on a monthly basis will attract ESI contribution. Now, if you do not show the bonus component in the voucher, then the workers can demand bonus when you pay it to the rest of the employees. At that time, you cannot say that bonus was paid to you along with wages.
Moreover, bonus always depends upon profitability of the establishment. You cannot say what will be the bonus payable in 2017. We can decide it only once the financial statements are prepared and it is usually fixed after a lengthy discussions with workers and trade unions. It is okay with an establishment which pays only statutory rate of bonus but not always practical. Therefore, paying bonus of the previous financial year on a monthly basis in the current year is not a good choice.
Madhu.T.K