Maternity leave days and other approved leaves shall be treated as days worked for the purpose of gratuity calculation. However, the days she was on unauthorized leave should not be counted. At the same time, if no disciplinary action has been taken against the employee for her unauthorized absence, then she will be deemed to have continuous service provided she had worked at least 190 days in this year. Otherwise, she will lose the opportunity to have continuous service if she had not worked for at least 240 days in any year.
To clarify, an employee already eligible to receive gratuity but is short of 240 days in any year for any reason, such as absence without leave for which no action was taken, will be deemed to have continuous service if they had worked at least 190 days.
However, if the employee in your case is leaving the company now, her entitlement will be determined differently. In this case, her number of working days in the fifth year will only be up to 25-09-2009. Since then, she has been on unauthorized leave without pay and approval. Therefore, calculate the number of days from 3-02-09 to 25-09-09, and if it reaches 240 days, then pay her gratuity; otherwise, refuse gratuity. It is unlikely to reach 240 days.
Please note that the concept of 190 days is only applied for the calculation of gratuity for an employee who is already entitled to receive gratuity after serving the company for more than five years.
Regards,
Madhu.T.K