Not needless to mention the amendments carried out to the following sections of the Payment of Bonus Act,1965 in 2015 as hereunder for the sake of clarity:
Section.2 (13 ) : The cap on the monthly salary limit in the term ' employee ' for the purpose of the Act has been raised to Rs.21000-00.
Section 12 : The notional monthly salary limit for the purpose of calculation of bonus under the Act has been raised from Rs.3500/= to Rs.7000/=. Furthermore, this limit is linked to the statutory minimum wages in respect of employees covered under the Minimum Wages Act,1948 in such a manner that the limit would be Rs.7000/=pm or the minimum wages for such employment whichever is higher.
Coming to Prakash's question:
(1) The employee joining on the 1st day of February,2021 and continued in service there onwards would be eligible to get bonus for the accounting year 2020-'21 as he would have worked for more than 30 working days in that accounting year.
(2) Regarding the following accounting year 2021-'22 in which he worked up to 15, December,2021 and then resigned on the very same date, he would be eligible to get bonus under the Act for the period from 01-04-2021 to 15-12-2021 only when it becomes payable any time between April,2022 and November,2022.
(3) The employee's salary is mentioned as Rs.21000/= gross. I would like to request him to carefully go through the definition of the term ' salary or wage ' as given u/s 2 (16) of the Act. Then he would understand that it is not " gross monthly salary " but only the basic pay and the dearness allowance, if any in view of the excluded components of the salary therein. Therefore, Prakash has to calculate himself the amount of bonus payable to him for the two accounting years based on the actuals. It is not known how the bonus for 2020-'21 was not paid to him even after his resignation on 15-12-2021.
(4) We should remember that bonus under the Act is payable to the employee based on the salary or wage earned by him during the accounting year in question in terms of percentage and not on the basis of the days or months served. In other words, the scheme of the Payment of Bonus Act,1965 would suggest that the factor of time duration is introduced in the Act only in respect of fixing the accounting year, providing for set on and set off, setting the time limit for payment of bonus, extension of the time limit and the minimum qualifying service for bonus.