Every employee entitled to gratuity-HINDU

Court: every employee entitled to gratuity
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Every employee, who has served an organisation for five or more years,
is entitled for gratuity, irrespective of his superannuation,
retirement, resignation, death, disablement or any other terminology
used by the management to send him out of service, Madras High Court
Bench here has ruled.

Justice K. Chandru was dismissing a writ petition filed by the Special
Officer of the Srirangam Cooperative Urban Bank claiming the right to
withhold the gratuity of an office assistant who was allowed to retire
after 34 years of service without prejudice to the criminal
proceedings pending against him.

“Merely because in the relieving order it was stated that it was being
passed without prejudice to the criminal proceedings against the
workman, that will have no bearing in determining the liability for
payment of gratuity under Section 4(1) of the Payment of Gratuity Act.
Therefore, this objection must necessarily fail.”

The judge, however, pointed out that Section 4(6) of the Act enabled
the employer to forfeit the gratuity. He also said that the option of
invoking Section 4(6) would not be available for the employers if the
employee had retired or reached the age of superannuation as held by
the Madhya Pradesh High Court in R. Khichrolla Vs. Madhya Pradesh
State Cooperative Marketing Federation (2002).