SC TO DECIDE ON WITHHOLDING GRATUITY OF RETIRED EMPLOYEES
Pending departmental proceedings, if a Government employee is allowed to retire, can the employer withhold his gratuity when he is no longer in service? This interesting question of law will be decided by a larger bench of the apex court as a two-judge bench found there was no authoritative judgment on this point.
This issue has emerged to be a tricky one as under the existing law on gratuity in can be forfeited only upon termination of service. In the case of a retired employee, this condition would not hold good as he has already superannuated.
Hence the Court would have to decide whether a retrospective termination of service can be handed out to such an employee in order to justify withholding of gratuity. The order was passed in the case of Chairman-cum- Managing Director of Mahanadi Coalfield Ltd Rabindranath Choubey.
As Chief General Manager, Choubey faced allegations of misconduct for dishonestly causing loss of Rs. 31.65 crore to the company. During the pendency of inquiry, he superannuated in 2010. The company withheld his gratuity which he successfully reversed in the High Court. The company came in appeal to Supreme Court which yielded this order.
The SC bench of Justices KS Radhakrishnan and AK Sikri after reviewing past judgments decided on this case came to the conclusion that withholding of gratuity was a penalty that could be imposed on a serving employee.
“But it was not specifically on in clear terms contended that such a penalty could not be imposed on an employee who is already permitted to retire,” it added. The matter will now go to Chief Justice of India to constitute a three-judge bench to hear the case.
Source : http://www.dailypioneer.com
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