Can an Employee Use All 12 Pending CL for Vacation Without Facing Deductions?

If an employee has 12 CL pending and wants to use all 12 CL for a vacation, what is the policy regarding this? Is there any deduction for this?

If you feel that the employee deserves to take such a long casual leave, you can approve it considering that for the last 10 months, he has not taken any leave.

Casual Leave Policy

Note that casual leave is for 12 months starting from January, and the same will lapse on 31st December (2023) if not availed. If one is keeping 12 CL, naturally, he should not have taken any leave during this current year. Then let him take it. There is no legal objection to taking all the leaves at once.

Service rules consider Casual Leave to be the period spent on duty, not leave. Authorities/supervisory officers are delegated powers specifying the number of CL that could be sanctioned in a single stretch. Generally, it is the Head of Office who is competent to sanction the entire leave in one bunch.

Understanding Casual Leave (CL) Usage

Conventionally, CL is for purposes 'not planned' in advance, like leisure trips, etc. It's normally meant for contingencies and emergency situations. However, there is no ban as such. Many establishments discourage employees from availing long CL, say 4-5 days at a stretch. There is a hitch - CL cannot be combined with EL/PL, hence there is hardly any chance of utilizing CL for many days continuously.

Many times, by the end of the calendar year, there remain almost all 12 days unutilized. That's why we used to see 'exhausting leave' requests during December by many with a view to complete the CL credit as it cannot be carried over to the new year and hence elapses. It's prudent for anyone to utilize CL first and after exhausting CL completely, seek EL/PL.

When Mr. Kumar S. is mentioned, I would like to add that many organizations have policies to sanction Casual Leave (CL) for a maximum of up to 4 days at a stretch, including Government Organizations (Banks, etc.). In those cases, it is not possible to utilize CL beyond what is credited to the employee. In the absence of any specific policy, this may vary.

Regards, S K Bandyopadhyay
CEO-USD HR Solutions
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www.usdhrs.in

Leave Policies and Employee Entitlements

Leave policies vary from company to company. How the leave policy is structured in the organization is a point of consideration. If the organization permits all casual leaves to be taken at once, then the employee is entitled to 12 days of casual leave. Typically, the policy states that casual leave should not exceed three days and should not be combined with any other type of leave. There is no legal framework for leaves other than Earn Leave under the Factories Act and, of course, Medical leave under ESI. Granting 12 consecutive days of casual leave is at the discretion of the policy. This is my perspective.

Furthermore, if casual leave lapses at the end of the year and an employee has not utilized any up to that point, you may allow it, which may also depend on the employee's leave discipline.

Regards,
Dr. Y. Nagendra Kumar
HR Consultant and CEO
MIND TREAT KKD
KAKINADA