C.MUTHUPANDIAN Vs. THE MANAGEMENT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The short issue raised by the appellants against similar orders passed by the learned Single Bench is that there was no material for the Writ Court to come to a factual conclusion that the initial appointments of the appellants in the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation was as apprentice.

(2.) It was the contention of the employer in each case that the appropriate authorities who had found in favour of the present appellants had erred in not excluding the period of apprenticeship served by the appellants and providing for payment of gratuity even for the period when the appellants were apprentices. The principle plank of the writ petition was that Section 2(e) of the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972, defines an employee and expressly excludes apprentices from the definition of employee.

(3.) Though the employer contended in the writ petitions that each of these appellants continued as apprentices for periods as long as even six years, the Court restricted the period of apprenticeship to two years from the initial date of joining and modified the orders passed by the appropriate authority by disallowing gratuity for the relevant two years.