Private school teachers entitled to gratuity: Supreme Court
India Today
The Supreme Court, on Thursday, ruled that private school teachers are also entitled to gratuity benefits and directed private schools to pay employees/teachers gratuity with interest in terms of the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972, in six weeks.
The Supreme Court, on Thursday, ruled that private school teachers who have retired since April 1997 and completed five years of service will be entitled for the gratuity.
The Supreme Court upheld the 2009 amendment to the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 and ruled that the benefit of gratuity would extend to teachers, including those employed in private schools.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Bela M Trivedi said, “The amendment with retrospective effect remedies the injustice and discrimination suffered by the teachers on account of a legislative mistake, which was understood after the pronouncement of the judgment in Ahmedabad Private Primary Teachers’ Association. The amendment was necessary to ensure that something which was due and payable to the teachers is not denied to them due to a defect in the statute."
The bench rejected the argument of private schools that they don't have the capacity and ability to pay gratuity to the teachers is unapt and parsimonious.
The court directed private schools to pay employees/teachers gratuity with interest in terms of the Act in six weeks.
The order came on a petition filed by Independent Schools' Federation of India challenging the validity of the amendment.
Private schools have argued before the Supreme Court that the 2009 legislation was in violation of an apex court judgment that had upheld the view that private school teachers were not employees and so not entitled for gratuity.
