Counting the weekly off as leave stopped being a company policy question on 21 November 2025, for every establishment with ten or more workers. Twenty-nine states and union territories, each read from its own Act, plus the central provision that now sits over all of them.
Twenty-nine states across two pages, then twelve checks. Every row names the Act and the section behind it.
The three shapes a sandwich policy takes, then section 32(1)(iv) quoted in full and the two sections that make a weekly off a holiday.
Four gates: ten workers, the definition of worker, the hundred and eighty day condition, and the carve-outs. Most policies have never checked the second, and the word mainly is what decides it.
One row per state: the section, what it says, and whether it covers casual leave or only earned. Thirteen exclude the holiday, fifteen say nothing at all, and one requires it.
Madhya Pradesh, which requires the sandwich, and the one class of employee the central rules prescribe it for. Neither is where anyone expects.
Wording that works in all twenty-nine, the four places the old rule survives after you change it, including the encashment at exit, then the whole guide on one page.
Attendo (formerly Petpooja Payroll) holds the weekly off, the holiday calendar and the leave ledger, so deductions follow the rule.
It does not, for most people. Search this question and you will be told that sandwich leave is common in India and that the answer is whatever your HR policy says. That was never true in thirteen states, and it stopped being true everywhere else on 21 November 2025.
The provision is section 32(1)(iv) of the OSH Code 2020, and it is one sentence: any holidays falling between the leave availed by such worker, in a calendar year or prefixed or suffixed holiday, shall be excluded from the period of leave so availed. Read the bracket, because it is doing most of the work. It covers the holiday in the middle of the sandwich, and it covers the holiday immediately before and immediately after a period of leave, which is the same rule facing the other way and the version most policies actually run.
The step people miss is why a weekly off counts as a holiday at all. The Code says so itself. Section 26 is headed Weekly and compensatory holidays and calls the day a worker does not work a weekly holiday. Section 28 then defines what a weekly holiday for a whole day means for somebody on a night shift. So when section 32(1)(iv) says holidays, unqualified, the Sunday is one. This matters because the argument for sandwich leave has always rested on treating the weekly off as something other than a holiday, and the Code closes that.
Underneath the Code, Shops and Establishments law is state law, and it varies. Thirteen states answer this question in their own Act and answer it the same way. Fifteen do not answer it at all. And one, Madhya Pradesh, answers it the other way: holidays falling during the period of leave shall be included in the leave so granted. No survey we could find carries that state, because India Code holds its Act as a scan with no text layer. It was found by rendering the pages and reading them. Three rows carry a caveat: those Acts come into force only when the state notifies, and Goa's 2025 Act has not commenced at all, so the 1973 Act governs there and it is silent. Chapter 4 says what each one changes, and tells you to confirm it locally. The same state-by-state split is why sick leave has no single national answer either.
There is also one class of employee for whom the sandwich is the prescribed rule, written into the central rules in 2026 rather than inherited from 1958. Chapter 7 is about that, and about how broadly its definition reads. All of which is why this piece exists: not because sandwich leave is unfair, but because since the four labour codes came into force it is a compliance question with a citable answer, and a leave balance is a payroll record before it is an HR preference. The same is true of overtime, where the Code sets the rate.
The same two days off, taken by the same employee, are deducted differently depending on where the desk is and how many people work beside it. Three of the twenty-nine rows, and the central rule that sits over all of them.
| State | Weekly off | Provision | Covers | The Act | Chapter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maharashtra | Not leave | s.18(9) | Earned and casual | 2017 Act | 05 |
| Karnataka | Act is silent | s.15 | Nothing stated | 1961 Act | 04 |
| Madhya Pradesh | Counts as leave | s.26(1) | Weekly offs during leave, and it clashes with the Code | 1958 Act | 06 |
| The Code, everywhere | Not leave | s.32(1)(iv) | Earned leave, 10+ workers | OSH Code | 02 |
| All twenty-nine | 13 no, 1 yes, 15 silent | 04 |
Nine of the Acts use one inherited sentence, covering ten of the thirteen rows: the leave admissible shall be exclusive of all holidays, during or at either end. Kerala and Nagaland word it differently, Uttar Pradesh again.
Source: India Code, Maharashtra Act 2017, s.18(9), and thirteen moreMadhya Pradesh includes the weekly holiday in the leave, in terms, and has since 1958. Its Act is a scan with no text layer, so a search of it returns nothing and no survey we could find carries the row.
Source: India Code, M.P. Shops and Establishments Act 1958, s.26(1)At ten or more, the OSH Code reaches you whatever your state Act says or does not say. That is new since the codes commenced, and it covers offices.
Source: OSH Code 2020, s.2(v) establishment, s.32(1)(iv) leaveIt is a policy choice only below ten workers, for people outside the definition of worker, and for casual leave in most states. Everywhere else there is a provision with a number, and the number is section 32(1)(iv). Section 120(1) then says the Code has effect notwithstanding anything inconsistent in any other law or in any contract of service, so a policy that contradicts it does not win because it is written down and signed.
Most policies that drop the rule drop only the middle case, and go on deducting the Saturday when somebody takes the Friday. Section 32(1)(iv) names the prefixed and suffixed holiday in the same bracket as the one in between. Search your policy for those two words, not for the word sandwich.
In most of the thirteen states, the clause is attached to one sub-section and that sub-section is earned leave. Only Maharashtra, Kerala and Nagaland attach it to the whole section or the whole chapter. Goa would be a fourth, but its 2025 Act has not commenced. Read the cross-reference inside the clause, not just the sentence.
Fifteen jurisdictions say nothing about holidays during leave, and most have a section making it void to contract out of a right the Act confers. Delhi section 24 is the clearest. Whether a sandwich rule crosses that line is for the authority under the Act, which is a different thing from a green light.
The handbook is not what deducts the day. The leave rule in the HRMS is, and it is usually configured once at go-live and never revisited. The balance the employee sees, the registers an inspection asks for and the final settlement all follow the configuration.
Rule 66(10) of the OSH Central Rules 2026 makes a holiday intervening during leave part of that leave, for working journalists and sales promotion employees. The second definition covers anyone doing work relating to promotion of sales or business, below the managerial and supervisory cut-offs, in any establishment. It is much wider than it sounds.
Custom, described as law
Twenty-nine Acts, and the Code
Twenty-nine states, the central provision quoted in full, a clause you can lift, twelve checks. Short form, instant download.
Attendo, formerly Petpooja Payroll, is payroll and attendance software used by more than 40,000 businesses in India, across manufacturing, corporate offices, retail, hospitality and education. It holds the weekly off, the holiday calendar and the leave ledger together, so a leave balance follows the rule you wrote. See what it does, or browse every free download we publish.
The deduction is a configuration before it is a policy. Attendo makes the two the same thing.
