In India, sick leave is only for illness/medical emergencies, or its definition is much broader?

Hi, Case- Employee raised a future date sick leave (SL), and management rejected it on the grounds that Sick leave can not be a future date and the employee has PL, so he should raise PL.
1. In India, sick leave is only for illness/medical emergencies, or its definition is much broader.
2. Can employee take future date sick leave. Do we have any legal rule for this?

There is nothing wrong in doing so because Sick leave is not restricted to for treatment as out patient but there may be instances where date of operation or treatment as in patient is fixed in advance and the employee may take SL in advance. That attitude of employee should be respected
Regards,
Madhu.T.K

Leave for medical causes / sickness is of diff types in diff companies, usually if sick leave is 6-8 days in a year then it is to be used for 1 day , 2 day sickness etc,
if your company has provision of Medical Leave then it is a future planned leave for operation, surgeries, treatment etc, so in this case as per your companypolicy if employee has more no of PL then ask employee to take PL, and not to mark it as SL if there is no quota of SL ..

Yes, you can but as the by law it's Sick leave should be used for that purpose & can be taken for planned operations etc.

Dear White Eagle:
The question you have raised can be read in two different ways. Let me clarify:
Either the application is submitted in advance for sick leave occuring at a later period; OR
An employee applies in advance for sick leave to which he/she is not yet entitled.
Let me deal first with the second possibility. It is entirely up to the Company to decide on granting the employee sick leave that has not yet accrued, and adjusting it against future entitlement. No rule or law covers this.
In case of the first scenario, one can well imagine situations of planned hospitalization due to occur in future. If hospitalization for operations or other prolonged treatment is not treated as meriting sick leave, then I really wonder what would. By and large, sick leave is meant to cover illnesses, hospitalization etc. but not festivals, celebrations, marriages, vacations etc. (if that is what you sought clarification on).
Regards,
Gerry303

Sick leave is incorporated in leave rules as a welfare measure. Hence it cannot be demanded as a matter of right.
Secondly, Sick leave, is to tend to sickness after one has fallen sick. It cannot be taken in advance, even if one wants to go to see a doctor.

Dear Members of CiteMan discussions,
I am a doctor in a sugar industry in south India. Medical leave in advance may be intimated to the issuing authority, in my case, a factory medical officer, who is under HR department. but committing a leave on ML form or by a written memorandum before the employee's sickness has to be decided by the doctor in charge. The same must be intimated to the time office and the personnel department. Daily mails of the sick employee must be reported to the department head of the person availing sick leave and the reason must be intimated to the head of the department or department incharge, or shift executive. i keep my department updated regularly by mails so that if a person on shift is absent, another worker to handle the process can be decided in advance by the concerned department. This is how we operate and it keeps our shift executives/managers of respective departments posted so that they can plan their manpower.
Dr.T.V.Venkataramanan.

Hi All,
Thanks for your inputs.
There can be cases where both parents are working and when kids become ill they have to take leave.
I want to know employees can take SL to address their own short-term illnesses or the short-term illness of a family member also.

Hi Friend,
Employee can avail SL only if he/she is Sick, the same doesn't apply if any of his/her family members are sick. If thats the situation then he/she has to apply for Casual leave (or) Earned leave to take care of them.
- Babu

Yes, employee can take future date sick leave but in case if he is certain and apply with doctor recommendation of bed rest, etc.