IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of Decision : 17.11.2025 M/S Business Octane Solutions Pvt. Ltd. …Petitioner Versus The Presiding Officer, Labour Court-I, Gurgaon and others ...Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE KULDEEP TIWARI Present: Mr. Sameer Vats, Advocate for Mr. Abhimanyu Singh, Advocate for the petitioner.

Mr. Sandeep Kotla, Advocate for respondent No.3.

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KULDEEP TIWARI, J.(ORAL)

1. Through the instant writ petition, cast under Article 226/227 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner/Management, has thrown a challenge to impugned order dated 30.06.2015 (Annexure P-3), passed by the respondent No.1, whereby, the claim petition filed by the respondent No.3, under Section 7 of the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 (hereinafter to be referred to as ‘the Act’), has been allowed, and the petitioner/Management, was directed to pay the gratuity amount of Rs.39,000/-, to respondent No.3, within a period of 30 days, from the date of the order (supra), failing which, the said amount will be recovered along with interest @12% per annum, from the date of the order, till its actual payment.

2. The sole ground submitted before this Court, for throwing challenge to the order (supra), is that the respondent No.3, has only worked for 04 years 10 months and 15 days, and therefore, he does not qualify for the payment of gratuity, as he was required to complete 05 years in service. He further submitted that the authority concerned, has wrongly invoked the Section 2-A of the Act, for calculating the period of 240 days, in the preceding year. It is submitted that since it is a case of voluntarily retirement from the service, therefore, the respondent No.3, cannot be given the benefit of sub-clause (2) of Section 2-A of the Act.

3. While placing reliance upon the judgment passed by the Karnataka High Court, in Writ Petition No.48825 of 2016, decided on 28.06.2022, titled ‘M/s. Alvas Institute of Engineering and Technology versus The State of Karnataka and others’ learned counsel for the petitioner submits that interruption in service is not on account of reasons as enumerated under Section 2-A (1) of the Act, entitling the respondent No.3/workman, to claim that he is deemed to be in continuous service and claim the benefit of Section 2-A (2) of the Act.

4. On the other hand, learned counsel for the respondent No.3/workman, has submitted that the learned authority concerned, has rightly invoked the sub-clause (2) of Section 2-A of the Act, to grant the benefit to the respondent No.3/workman. He further submits that sub-clause (2) of Section 2-A of the Act, is to be invoked only when an employee is not in continuous service within the meaning of Clause (1) of Section 2-A of the Act. 5. This Court has considered the submissions as made by learned counsel for the parties concerned. Since the issue, as involved in the instant writ petition revolves around the interpretation of Section 2-A of the Act, therefore, it is imperative to discuss the same.

6. Section 2-A defines continuous service for the purpose of determining the employee’s eligibility for gratuity. As per the said provision, an employee, is in continuous service, if he has uninterrupted service, despite there being a gap in the service, on account of sickness, accident, leave, or lay off, do not break the continuity of work. Further, the absence from the duty is not considered a break if it was on account of the employee’s fault, which is duly prescribed. As per sub-Section (2), if actual uninterrupted service is not available, meaning thereby, if an employee has not worked continuously, his service shall still be deemed to be continuous, if he has actually worked for a minimum number of days in the preceding year, as prescribed therein.

7. Perusal of sub-Clause (1) and (2) above, makes it vividly clear that both are operated in different spheres, therefore, it is not necessary that when the conditions prescribed in sub-clause (1) of Section 2-A, sub-clause (2