Ponder over these:
1. The 35 hours exclude breaks for lunch, etc.
2. The regulations do not allow even the prinicpal to make it a habitual thing to detain you week after week.
3. Therefore, you can not expect unlimited set off as this situatuon has to be an exception and not rule.
4. Even then, the excess for a week cannot go over 45 hours, excluding the breaks.
5. Any such excess has to be set off by compensatory reduction in following weeks wehere work exigencies are not there and in principle cannot be accumulated week after week by adding and carried off week after week till articles get over. This is an exceptional situation and the principal can not make it a regular training situation.
6. He may be justified in insisting on you taking compensatory leave or working less hours during remaining period of articleship instead of setting off against the excess leave. He will be well within his rights even if you would prefer set off against the excess leave.
7. Did you invovke your right in real time? If you slept over it over months without formally writing to the prinicpal, you have already slept over it. Verbal communication is of no use.
8. Has the principal maintained proper records of your working hours? If not, it is your word against his. One reason why ICAI is mooting the idea of online training records, updated on its website. No manipulations possible.
9. Inquiry is a long way to claim set off, By then possibly your children's articles will be over too. The ICAI now has washed its hands off prinicpal articles disputes wef July 2, 2010. ( See the circular).