Is an Employee Entitled to Gratuity if Asked to Leave Before 5 Years?

Nsatpathy
I am regularly reading this interesting site. Help me understand: if the employee is not resigning and the employer requests the employee to leave due to the employer's business priority, is the employee eligible to get gratuity if this separation happens before 5 years from the joining date?

Regards,
Niranjan
muthanna.mcm
Why should an employee lose their benefits when leaving due to business reasons? They should be given gratuity.

Regards,
Muthanna
RR Mohanty
Gratuity Eligibility Upon Termination

Gratuity shall be payable to an employee upon the termination of their employment after they have rendered continuous service for not less than five years. This applies whether the termination is due to superannuation, retirement, resignation, death, or disablement resulting from an accident or disease. The completion of continuous service for five years is not required in cases where termination is due to death or disablement.

An employee is considered to be in continuous service for a period if they have been in uninterrupted service during that time, even if interruptions occur due to sickness, accidents, leaves, absences from duty without leave, lay-offs, strikes, lockouts, or cessation of work not caused by the employee's fault.

This means that an employee asked to leave the job due to the employer's decision will still be eligible for gratuity, even if the five-year span has not been completed.
saswatabanerjee
Eligibility for Gratuity in Case of Termination

Where does it say he will be eligible for gratuity? This is not an interruption of service due to a lockout or something like that. This is a termination of service. He stops being an employee at that point. Since he has not completed 5 years of work, he does not get gratuity. Whether he is terminated for business reasons or not does not matter.

saswatabanerjee
We are discussing a point of law, not the fairness of the employer. The law states that you only receive gratuity after working for 5 years. If you have not worked for 5 years, you do not receive gratuity, regardless of the reasons why you left (other than death).

akshat.vashistha
If an organization terminates an employee after the completion of 3.5 years of their job, can the employee claim Gratuity?

Regards,
Akshat Vashistha
v.harikrishnan
The views expressed by Vishal Tripathy and Saswatha Banerjee are correct. In the circumstances stated by Akshat Vashistha, the employee is not entitled to receive gratuity.

Regards,
Nirankari_Happy
Eligibility for Gratuity Without an Appointment Letter

If an employee is working with an organization without any appointment letter and without any terms and conditions, is the employee eligible for gratuity once they leave the job (having worked for more than 5 years)?

If yes, then how can I calculate the gratuity without knowing the salary breakup?

Thank you in advance.

Regards,
Attribution: https://www.citehr.com/493700-gratui...#ixzz31fihnFBL
v.harikrishnan
The employer-employee relationship is usually established by the production of the appointment order. In the absence of the appointment order, the employer-employee relationship has to be established through evidence, which can also be oral. Alternatively, there may be other documents, such as payment vouchers, that could be produced to establish the employer-employee relationship. Please note that the Payment of Gratuity Act does not specify that an appointment order is a must to establish the employer-employee relationship. This relationship is purely a question of fact to be determined based on the evidence, either oral or documentary.

With regards,
v.harikrishnan
Definitely, the individual worker who is making a claim for gratuity would know the salary wages he was receiving. That is the basis for the claim. The Payment of Gratuity Act and the rules made thereunder prescribe the procedure for making a claim if the employer either refuses to pay gratuity or pays a lesser amount. If there is a dispute regarding the quantum of gratuity paid/payable, then the affected individual worker has to approach the prescribed authority by making a claim. In the claim petition, he has to specify the wages paid to him, which would enable him to claim the exact amount of gratuity. This claim has to be repudiated effectively based on evidence by the employer. If not, the worker has to prove through oral or documentary evidence to establish his claim. The employer can even deny employing the worker. This also has to be proved by evidence. If no documentary evidence is available, this has to be established through oral evidence.

Regards
If you are knowledgeable about any fact, resource or experience related to this topic - please add your views. For articles and copyrighted material please only cite the original source link. Each contribution will make this page a resource useful for everyone. Join To Contribute