Can a company prohibit it's employees from taking casual leaves/Unpaid Leave on certain dates in business interest?

HRAnjali
Greetings to all the learned members of the forum!!

Kindly guide:

Can a company prohibit it's employees from taking casual leaves/unpaid leaves on certain dates in business interest?

eg, we are having holidays on 13th Aug - Second Saturday, 14th Aug - Sunday, 15th Aug - Independence Day.
Employees are planning to take leaves on 11th & 12th Aug as well on account of Rakhi.

Can the company unapprove these kind of leaves?

We are a service based organisation with our major clientele of U.S.A.
nanu1953
If there is no client - there is no business. Under any circumstances the services to client can not be stopped.

The situation as mentioned in the post , it will be better to discuss between employees/Union vs Management and may allow some employees to go for leave on 11th & 12th Aug,2022 after agreement between the parties.

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panchsen
You cannot prohibit employees from availing leave ,giving valid reasons.
It is to be uderstood that if majority of employees seek leave in advance or belatedly after being absented form work can be cnstrued as a act of illegal absentention /bycot from work and denial of leave o such occasions will be in order, Further the employer can initiate disciplinary action aginst such employees as per provisions of certified standing orders .
As a pro active measure , you can restrict leave being availed by employees en masse by an appeal to employeees. It is also open to have an agreemnt with the union/employees representatives as regards retriction in number employees to granted in the interests of running the operations without much of damage,
P.Senthilkumar
saswatabanerjee
I will disagree with Senthilkumar

Employees need to apply for leave and the leave needs to be specifically granted.
Leave on a particular day is not entirely a right.

However, it is possible that people will still be absent and will give a doctors note stating they were unwell.
So it is better to be proactive and discuss the matter with the employees, may be by offering incentives to some who agree to not take leave and to encourage the team to mutually agree who will work and who will be able to take leave.
rkn61
Management must take every endeavour to grant leaves to such employees, if their reasons are convincing and pressing, to their employees. At the same time, it should also be borne in mind that leave can not be availed/taken, as a matter of right. Hence it is suggested to exercise judiciously, for granting leaves.

But if the employees are planning to avail leave en masse, it should be curtailed and management can appeal to employees (by putting a notice in the Notice board) .
HRAnjali
Thanks to the learned members for your valuable opinions.
We have decided that we will allow the employees to take one leave either on 11th or 12th Aug as a Casual Leave. But not on both the days.
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