66(17)

66(17)(i) A working journalist or sales promotion employee shall be entitled to leave on medical certificate on one-half of the wages at the rate of not less than one month for every eighteen months of service: Provided that such employee shall cease to earn such leave when the leave on medical certificate amounts to ninety days. (ii) Such medical certificate shall be from a qualified medical practitioner: Provided that when a working journalist has proceeded to a place other than their headquarters with the permission of employer and falls ill, they may produce a medical certificate from any qualified medical practitioner: Provided further that the employer may, when the registered medical practitioner whose certificate is produced is not in the service of the Government, arrange at their own expense for the medical examination of the working journalist or sales promotion employee concerned by any Government Medical Officer not below the rank of a Civil Assistant Surgeon or by any other Medical Officer in charge of a hospital run by a leave authority or a public organisation at that place. (iii) Leave on medical certificate may be taken in continuation with earned leave but the total duration of earned leave and leave on medical certificate taken together shall not exceed a hundred and twenty days at any one time: Provided that Medical Board may recommend for leave beyond one hundred twenty days. (iv) A working journalist or sales promotion employee shall be entitled at their option to convert leave on medical certificate on one-half of the wages to half the amount of leave of full wages.

66(17)(v) The ceiling laid down in the provision to clause (i) and (iii) on the accumulation and total duration of leave may be relaxed by the competent officer in the cases of working journalists or sales promotion employees suffering from lingering illness such as tuberculosis; (vi) Leave on medical certificate or converted leave on medical certificate referred to in clause (i) and (iv) respectively may be granted to a working journalist or sales promotion employees at their request notwithstanding that earned leave is due to them.