Forced PL - owner of the company wants employees to take PLs to ensure work life balance

Hi, My office is governed by Delhi Shop and Establishment Act. The owner of the company wants employees to take PLs to ensure work life balance. He wants the office to be closed for a certain period of time once a year, for instance for a week. Now the question is will that period in which the office will be closed be deducted from employees PL balance, can an organization force an employee to take leave or it will be considered as holidays with No PL deduction.

Work life balance is a good concept and employees must avail earned leave to spend time with family and friends. To my mind employer can't force employees to take leave.
R R Kapoor

The employer has the discretion in regulate as and when the employee seeks to avail of leave; But he/she cannot dictate as to when and how the employee ought to avail of the leave nor can he/she arbitrarily close the establishment and adjust the period as leave availed. Such an action would be tantamount to taking law in into own hands.

Dear colleague,
If it is a part of service condition and meant to achieve work-life balance, organisation can schedule compulsory leave for all to avail at the same period. It is pro -employee intervention and I do not see anything wrong in it.
Only thing is , such a leave can be over and above an employee may want to avail of some other period in the year.
Regards,
Vinayak Nagarkar
HR-Consultantmm

Hi S' Badola,
Though the concept looks appropriate, it can't be judged on the consequences. If the office is closed it's generally taken as 'paid holiday'. Since there is no tag attached like 'lay off', lock out, shut down for want of orders or raw material' etc. the event can be taken as 'paid holiday' which we can't either affirm or deny without knowing the ground realities. And whether these 'closed' days will be debited to employees' PL a/c, I think you should make it clear from the owner himself and act accordingly.
Except on 'health' issues no employer can send an employee on 'leave'. Moreover we have no information about the nature of your duty, is't some much stressful/ or polluted warranting compulsory shut down of the unit itself ?
Is't for the first time such closure is resorted to? what the other employees say or react to this? I think if there is no salary cut you people can accept is gladly.