No no sir, I don't have any cases going on. I just looked up the subject of gratuity pay on Google and it led me to this page and the query posted here pertains to the situation I am also in. I have no connection with any other posts here and this is the first ever time I am here.
As for the "anonymity", I simply don't want my employer to know at the moment that I am considering quitting, given that annual increments are due.
I had to look up what is retainer ship, because I panicked wondering whether the employer had put something of that sort in my appointment letter.
Coming back to the subject, again this is what is causing me paranoia given you have said that these terminologies like "fee" are leading to confusion.
To clarify again the employer has used the terminology of "Consultant" in my previous increment letter. The earlier letter raised my position to the level of manager along with the annual increment. This sudden change in the use of terminologies and the change of the term from "compensation" to "fee" is now making me wonder whether these will be used against me to deprive me of gratuity. Even on the company's internal telephone directory, until last year it showed my name and designation - "Manager - Department Name". But now it shows consultant.
Again: I am supposed to work like any other employee, ensure full attendance, be present at the time as per the roster, and put in extra hours as demanded like any other employee. I personally chose to not take the "payroll" option because the number of deductions under various categories were too high and back then my salary was quite low. Besides there was hardly any difference in treatment of the so-called contract employees and the other staff because we are entitled to every facility including use of company transport; annual leaves; using company facilities such as the library, gymnasium etc. We need to ensure punching in of digital ID card to mark our attendance. Annual leave policy applies to me. The only difference being that the salary slip has ONLY one header which is "Fee" for the month of so and so with no breakup whatsoever and no deductions in PF. Only the TDS of 10% is deducted, which I anyway claim back through IT returns. I am entitled to the company's mediclaim policy too. (PS: The added advantage being that contract employees don't have that monthly mediclaim deduction while as a govt mandate they are still entitled to it :D)
So once again my only purpose of this post was to verify if the company can misuse these tricky terminologies like "consultant", "fee" etc to deprive me of my gratuity.
From your response what I understood is:
Under the above circumstances of me not being some expert just called in as per needs like a "guest appearance" in a film, I am entitled to full gratuity.
The sum of all wages considering I do not have any such sub-header like HRA, Travel Allowance, Festival Allowance (these were what I meant as fancy allowances) or anything else which corporates invent to cut down on retiral benefits to be given to the employees. As you yourself know, several corporate employees get high salaries but the "basic" component is a very meagre sum. So my "Fee" in its entirety will be taken as "wage" for the calculation of gratuity.