Let us read verbatim what is written in the Act
Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972Section: 2A
Continuous service.
For the purposes of this Act, -
(1) an employee shall be said to be in continuous service for a period if he
has, for that period, been in uninterrupted service, including service which
may be interrupted on account of sickness, accident, leave, absence from
duty without leave (not being absence in respect of which an order [***]
treating the absence as break in service has been passed in accordance with
the standing order, rules or regulations governing the employees of the
establishment), lay off, strike or a lock-out or cessation of work not due to
any fault of the employee, whether such uninterrupted or interrupted service
was rendered before or after the commencement of this Act.
Explanation: For the purpose of clause (2), the number of days on which an
employee has actually worked under an employer shall include the days on
which -
(i) he has been laid-off under an agreement or as permitted by standing
orders made under the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946
(20 of 1946), or under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (14 of 1947), or
under any other law applicab1c to the establishment;
(ii) he has been on leave with full wages, earned in the previous year;
(iii) he has been absent due to temporary disablement caused by accident
arising out of and in the course of his employment and
(iv) in the case of a female, she has been on maternity leave; so, however,
that the total period of such maternity leave does not exceed twelve weeks.(this will change as per latest amendment for maternity leave)
With this as the base
Employee Personnel records need to be checked for punishments involving break in service.
Question2 is automatically answered by plain reading of the section.
Even 1 day absence,which is punished in a manner to treat it a break in service,will be taken into a/c for verifying eligibility of Gratuity.
https://www.citehr.com/435270-gratui...-employee.html