Should A New Employee Be Accepted Without Relieving Letter?

Respected members,
We have selected a resource who is unable to produce a relieving letter from his last employment which he left five months back. The documents he has produced are - experience certificate, offer letter, FFS,and salary slips.
The reason he has stated for not getting relieving letter is that he did not serve the notice period and the company as per policy was not willing to give him a relieving letter unless he serves. He attributed a medical emergency at his native to leaving his job in haste.
I am confused as we are in dire need of resources and there are pressing hiring targets. Please help me decide if its ok, what kind of problems could it cause?
Appreciate your direction and response.
Thanks,
Kumar

Dear Mr. Kumar,
Once the employee is provded with the experience certificate, Full and final settlement then the previous company can not cliam any thing from that employee or from the company where he joined and as per my opinion he is free from all his associations with that company and I don't know why they are unable to give the reliving letter once they have given all other documents like Experience certificate and FFS.
You can very well take him in to your rolls. Even some of the companies are inducting the employees by obtaining a indeminity bond from the employee (in the absen ce of reliving / FFS/ experience certificate) and inducting them in such case any legal issue comes then the employee only sole responsible and company is no way concerned with that hence - you can goahead with that type of arrangement but in the present case it is clear and you can goahead.
Regards-kameswarao

Dear cyberbuddy2007,
You shall consider him/her to some extent but in vain you have to be sure that you do a complete back ground verification on the new joiner. You can't completely take the reason given by the employee and the employer.
Ask that candidate the date when he/she has put his/her papers. Have he/she got any acknowledgment for that. Check with the date when he/she put his/her papers along with the last working day. It is kind of a hard man task in situation like this.
Remember a relieving letter is very much important compared to an experience letter because the previous company may any time sue the employee for non clearance. :(

Thanks for the advice Mahesh and Kameswarao.
I did check about the resignation letter. He mentioned he had sent it on email with a week's notice to the company (does not have a copy with him). However, he dint recieve any acknowledgement as they did not agree during verbal discussion on his request. Its upon his pleading and earliler good impression on his supervisor that he was given the experience certificate and FFS upon his return from his native after a month.
Looks like something may not be right, and we might have to reject him. Any views on this?
Thanks,
Kumar

Hello cyberbuddy,
I think next time whenever you give an offer to any candidate,ask them to send a resignations mail to their seniors with BCC copy to you as well,this confirms that the candidate has submitted official resignation in respective company.

Thanks Amit, I will keep that in mind for future. In this case, the person left the organization five months back so there is no way an email can be produced. However, I need to make a decision now for the candidate because of the hiring pressure. His bc check came out fine based on the documents he had provided.