(1) A working journalist 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 he shall cease to earn such leave when the leave on medical certificate amounts to ninety days.
1[(2) The medical certificate shall be from an authorized medical practitioner:
Provided that when a working journalist has proceeded to a place other than his headquarters with the permission of his employer and falls ill, he may produce a medical certificate from any registered medical practitioner:
Provided further that the employer may, when the registered medical practitioner is not in the service of the Government, arrange at his own expense, the medical examination of the working journalist concerned by any Government Medical Officer not below the rank of a Civil Assistant Surgeon or any other Medical Officer-in-charge of a hospital run by local authority or a public organization at the place, like the Kasturba Gandhi Trust, Kamla Devi Nehru Trust or Tata Memorial Trust.]
(3) Leave on medical certificate may be taken in continuation with earned leave provided that the total of duration earned leave and leave on medical certificate taken together shall not exceed a hundred and twenty days at any one time.
(4) A working journalist shall be entitled at his option to convert leave on medical certificate on one-half of the wages to half the amount of leave of full wages.
(5) The ceiling laid down in the provision to sub-rule (1) and sub-rule (3) on the accumulation and total duration of leave may be relaxed by the competent officer in the cases of working journalists suffering from lingering illness such as tuberculosis.
2[(6) Leave on medical certificate or converted leave on medical certificate referred to in sub-rules (1) and (4) may be granted to a working journalist at his request notwithstanding that earned leave is due to him.]