The Madras High Court has rejected a writ petition filed by Salem Textiles Ltd, Attur, seeking to set aside an order of the Appellate Authority under the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 allowing an application from an employee for payment of gratuity.

As the employee had not completed the minimum 5 years of service, the Controlling Authority (R-2) ordered that he was not eligible for the benefit.

Apprenticeship scheme

It was the case of the petitioner that Mr I. Rayar (R-1) was appointed an apprentice under the apprenticeship scheme on January 23, 1996, for a period of 3 years. On June 1, 1999, under a settlement between the management and workers u/s 18(1) of Industrial Disputes Act, 200 persons were absorbed into service from July 1, 1999, and the said person was one among them. He resigned from service on February 4, 2004. He filed an application before the Controlling Authority under the Gratuity Act (R-2) claiming gratuity. R-2, by an order dated June 29, 2005, rejected the employee's request.

Aggrieved by the same, R-3 appealed to R-1 (Appellate Authority under the Gratuity Act) u/s 7(7) of the Gratuity Act for gratuity. R-1 held that R-3 was a regular worker from April 4, 1984 to February 3, 2004. Inasmuch as the petitioner-management had not produced any document, their claim that R-3 was working as apprentice could not be countenanced, R-1 ruled.

Continuous service

Mr Justice K. Chandru, who heard the petition, observed that even if it was accepted that R-3 had worked only from July 1, 1999 and as per the settlement, and he resigned on February 3, 2004, he had worked for 4 years and 7 months even as a regular worker. Under Section 2A(2)(a), if the service was discontinuous than 240 days, it would be deemed to be continuous service. Hence, it could safely be assumed that R-3's service from July 1, 1999 to February 3, 2004 could be taken as the minimum service required u/s 4(1) so as to enable R-3 to get gratuity.

In the present case, since R-3 was not an Act Apprentice, in labour jurisprudence, mere nomenclature could not be a criterion for deciding the status.

The petitioner-employer not having let in any evidence, it could be safely held that R-3 had put in total service of 8 years.

Therefore, his gratuity could be worked out on the said basis.

In the light of the above, the writ petition was partly allowed, the Judge held. Without driving R-3 for enforcing the order, the petitioner was directed to pay gratuity as ordered to him directly within 2 months.

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