Employer refused to give relieving letter after serving notice period.

532 votes

sir,
you can complaint with the local jurisdiction Labour officer/ labour Inspector to seek the reliving letter along with the notice period salary + any other benefitts which has to be get from your employer from your employer. the labour officer / inspector will recive your complaint and acknowledge the same and issue the notice for your employee to issue relive letter. after that only your employer will issue the reliving letter
thanking you

Advocate Lingesh KC LawRato

1000 votes

Dear client,

I am writing with regard to your query posted above. I assume that your employer and the establishment of your employer come under the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 (the ‘Act’). In terms of standard provision of model standing order published by the government, an employer is bound to provide a certificate on termination of services of an employee. For ease of reference, the relevant provision has been reproduced as follow:
“16. Certificate on termination of service. --Every permanent workman shall be entitled to a service certificate at the time of his dismissal, discharge or retirement from service.”
Please note that above provision and the reference number may differ from state to state, however, it is general standard applicable across all industries except in certain state and specified industries.

It’s pertinent to note that in Karnataka the above Act is not applicable to the IT/ITES/Startups/Animation/Gaming/Computer Graphics/Telecom/BPO/KPO/ other knowledge based establishments, however, such establishment has established a Grievance Redressal Committee to sort out the issues of employee. You may approach such committee, if established by your employer. If it is not established then you may file case before Deputy Labour Commissioner of appropriate jurisdiction.

You may approach to your new employer and state that your ex-employer is not issuing the relieving letter; instead of giving the relieving letter, you provide them your resignation letter and an affidavit cum undertaking that there is no liability towards your ex-employer. Hope this would work.

Best regards,


Disclaimer: As to matters of law, I limit my response to the laws of India and the laws/rules/regulations of the state under whose jurisdiction the subject matters falls. Further, my response is limited to the facts presented by the client and laws in existence on the date of this response and at no subsequent time. This response is delivered to you in connection with the query raised/posted, and may not be utilized or quoted by you for any other purpose or relied upon by any other person or entity without prior consent. Further, this response does not create any attorney client relationship.

Advocate Sangeet Sindan LawRato