Maternity leave days and other leaves approved shall be treated as days worked for the purpose of gratuity calculation. However, the days she was on unauthorised leave should not be counted. But at the same time, if no disciplinary action has been taken against the employee for her unauthorised absence, then she will be deemed to have continuous service provided she had worked at least for 190 days in this year. Otherwise, she will lose to get continuous service if she had not worked in any year for at least 240 days.
To clarify, an employee already eligible to get gratuity is short of 240 days in any year for any reason like absence without leave for which no action was taken against that employee will be deemed to have continuous service provided he had worked at least for 190 days.
However, if the employee in your case is leaving the company now, her entitlement will be determined in a different manner. In this case, her number of working days in the fifth year will be upto 25-09-2009 only. Since then she was on leave without pay and that too without approval. Therefore, find the number of days from 3-02-09 to 25-09-09 and if it comes to 240 days then pay her gratuity, otherwise refuse gratuity. I think it will not come to 240 days.
Please note that the concept of 190 days is applied only for calculation of gratuity for an employee who is already entitled to get gratuity after having served the company for more than five years.
Regards,
Madhu.T.K