Personal Leave Dilemma: How to Use Your Paid Leave When Manager Says No?

Hi,

My manager is not approving my personal leave. My company gives 15 PL every financial year, but only 30 PL will be available in my HRMS account. If I do not use them, they will lapse.

Can you please suggest how I can use my PL?

Understanding Your Right to Leave

Leave is your right, and this right originates from the following sources:

1) Your contract or organization rules.
2) Shops and Establishment Act.
3) Factories Act or Minimum Wages Act.

If your leave entitlement comes from your contract, you can enforce it. If your employer does not allow you to use your leave, it constitutes a breach of contract, as leave is a material aspect of the employment contract. You can set aside the contract and resign from the job, and also claim damages along with compensation.

If you are covered by any of the above acts, which you can verify on the website below, you have the right to take leave. The employer will not be able to terminate you or take any action like deducting wages.

Simply cite these laws to your employer and request that they pay you wages plus compensation as a settlement for the loss of leisure in case your leave lapses.

If you want to take leave because it is lapsing, then you can encash it. If not, leave is your right.

Leave encashment is not provided in any of the above-mentioned laws. Leaves can only be availed or encashed at full and final settlement only. However, if an employer refuses to avail earned leave, only then the case may differ.

P K Sharma

Hi Team,

The company does not have a policy for leave encashment. I have been working with the company since 2011 as a permanent employee in the role of Senior Executive. However, my manager is unwilling to approve a 10-12 day long paid leave.

Thank you.

Understanding Leave Policies

10-12 days of leave at a stretch will technically mean you will be off from work for almost half of the month if you are working a 5-day week. If Earned Leave (EL) is calculated only for working days (Monday to Friday for 2 weeks + 2 Saturdays & 2 Sundays + 2-3 balance days), it might be challenging to expect your manager to sanction your leave, especially considering the fact that you are a senior executive. Additionally, leave sanction may also depend on the employee strength. The lesser the strength, the more difficult it becomes.

Advice on Availing Leave

My advice would be to avail EL for a maximum of 5 days at a stretch. If it's a five-day week, 2 weekends can be prefixed and suffixed, making a total of 9 days, which is quite reasonable.

Regards