Under the Act gratuity is payable in the event of:
Resignation, Retirement, Death, Superannuation, Termination.
Family/dependants of the employee can also be compensated from: “Any other fund for the welfare of the employees maintained by the company."
The employee/worker might have traveled, by two wheeler, due to many reasons, e.g. extended work hours previous day. The moment you declare employee is at fault the aggrieved family can take to legal recourse and the matter may be left to courts to decide the fault. Successful HR personnel and companies practicing Good HR practices are those who act sensibly especially in such circumstances and avoid legal and then financial burden, dent on image and goodwill of the company.
Mr. Kameaswarrao has given some practical and workable solutions. Kindly follow the advice.
Thus you shall build the image and goodwill of the company in the market and employees in the company and this shall help the company in the long run.
If the employee has nominated in PF, Gratuity accounts then help the nominee in staking claims.
You may find the following real life situation relevant and illustracious:
The candidates were selected from campus interviews (HR initiative), offer letters were issued and asked to report for centralized training programme at corporate training centre at HO. To and fro travel tickets were provided and stay arrangements were made. Subsequently Appointment letter with probation period was issued and all HR forms were submitted by the candidates. After training employees were instructed (letter issued) to report to Regional Head for induction and joining duties. Candidate reached his native place and proceeded to Regional HQ by road by Bus. On way bus stopped for lunch. This candidate was late and bus left. His bags containing testimonials were in the bus. He hired taxi to catch the bus. Taxi met with accident and while driver escaped with mild injuries the employee met with serious injuries. He was taken to nearest civil hospital. He was referred medical college. He was diagnosed with fatal “Brain Stem Injury” and was in neurology ward. His parents were informed. Since employee id not report Regional Head contacted HO and got native address of employee. Regional Head also got information that employee is almost on death bed. He acted sensibly and used his resources and ensured that the employee is taken under wings by HOD-Neuro Surgery and is admitted in ICU. HOD pegged the chances of survival at 90:10. The Regional Head, his team, family of employee utilized all of their resources and were able to secure a dedicated team of doctors/specialists to attend to the employee ( in a govt. and overcrowded but competent medical college). The employee survived and remained in hospital for over a month and later at the time of discharge the HOD mentioned he shall remain on wheelchair and shall require extensive and specialized physiotherapy support .and may not be able to work for months or years.
The family of the employee insisted that company should support them. Regional Head was in touch with HR and HO. HR was of the opinion employee has only undertaken training for a few days and had not joined duty and no financial support or compensation is deemed. Regional Head sensed protest and approached all the good offices and pointed out that all forms were collected from employee and submitted to concerned authoties, and family is likely to raise a protest.
Later Hr conceded that from LIC employee may receive 25% salary and company shall bear the medical expenses and if the employee is able to recover shall consider taking in employment and Chairman agreed to give a support of Rs 1.5 lacks.
Regional Head was able to convince the employees in his region to contribute and later pan India all employees contributed 2 days salary. Unions approached Regional Head and instead of any protest they agreed to take up the matter in their general body meeting and later they also collected and provided funds to the family. The unions were all praise for regional Head and then company. Chairman appreciated the regional Head and asked HR to look into all possibilities before closing the matters on intuition.
The company was able to raise the goodwill and attracted best of the candidates. There was no litigation in the matter.
