Sir/ Madam,
My wife joined Private IT Company on 22/10/2012 and her last date in organisation was 14/12/2017. (5.2 years =1879 days)
She was on maternity leave from 25/07/2017 to 16/07/2017. (357 days) Due to some complecations our doctor suggested to take complete bed rest and so same she infomed in her office and submited medical certificate for the same.but Company provides maternity leave of 3 months only as per company policy. So Comapny approved her unpaid leave for rest 9 months
After maternity leave she joined organisation again on 17/07/2017. and since 17/07/2017 to 14/12/2017 she was working half day (obviously eligible fo half day salary).
Now In FnF her company denied to give gratuty by saying as per Payment of Gratuty Act, 1972 & Maternity BenifitAct, 2017. she was on maternity leave for 357 days which is more than 26 weeks so they can not consider maternity leave as uninteruted service. So they deducted 357 days from her total service i.e. (1879 days - 357 days =1522 days) which equals 4.2 years of service. So since now service is for only 4.2 years they can not give Gratuty Amount. and given reference of below Act.
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Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 and Maternity Benefit Amendment Act,2017
As per section 2A of Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Act, 2016 an employee shall be said to be in Continuous Service for a period if he/she has, for that period, been in uninterrupted service, including service which may be interrupted on account of maternity leave in case of female employees, however, that the total period of such maternity leave does not exceed twenty six weeks as per amendment in Maternity Benefit Amendment Act,2017.
Maternity Benefit Amendment Act,2017 Applicable with effect from 1st April, 2017
This amendment is also applicable to all those female employees who were on maternity leave when the amended act became applicable i.e 01/04/2017.
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So now my question is my wife is really elligible for Gratuity.?
Please Guide/ Help?
Thanks In Advance...
