Dharmadhikari, J. - (1.) This appeal has been preferred by Ahmedabad Private Primary Teachers Association. The Association complains that in the petition filed by an individual teacher (respondent No. 2 herein) employed in a school run by Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, the Full Bench of the High Court of Gujarat by impugned judgment dated 4-5-2001 in Special Civil Application No. 5272 of 1987 not only rejected the claim of the teacher for payment of gratuity under the provisions of Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 (for short the Act) but has decided an important question of law against the teachers as a class that they do not fall within the definition of employee as contained in Section 2(e) of the Act and hence can raise no claim to gratuity under the Act.
(2.) The definition of employee contained in Section 2(e) of the Act of 1972 reads as under :- 2(e). employee means any person (other than an apprentice) employed on wages, in any establishment, factory, mine, oilfield, plantation, port, railway company or shop to do any skilled, semi-skilled, or unskilled, manual, supervisory, technical or clerical work, whether the terms of such employment are express or implied, (and whether or not such person is employed in a managerial or administrative capacity, but does not include any such person who holds a post under the Central Government or a State Government and is governed by any other Act or by any rules providing for payment of gratuity). (Underlining giving emphasis)
(3.) One of the learned Judges of the High Court in his separate concurring opinion held that as gratuity payable to teachers employed in schools of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation are governed by statutory regulations known as Gratuity Regulations of the Municipal Corporation of the city of Ahmedabad framed by the Corporation under Section 465(i)(h) of the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act, 1949, such teachers even if held to be covered by main part of definition of employee are expressly excluded by the last exclusionary clause of the definition shown by underlying it as above.;