Can HR Prevent an Employee from Taking Leave During Notice Period? Seeking Advice and Insights

Hi Readers, I have a situation at hand that requires your precious advice. The matter is as follows:

1) An employee resigned on Jan 1, 2011.
2) Her notice period is for 1 month only.
3) Now she wants to take leave from Jan 16 to Jan 30, 2011.
4) She will return to the office on Jan 31, 2011, to handle the handover and exit formalities.
5) Her department supervisor has approved that leave as Privilege Leave.
6) Privilege Leave is also adjustable against the notice period.
7) She has 50 Privilege Leave days as of Jan 1, 2011.

Questions:

a) Can HR stop her from taking leave in this scenario? Although her department does not have any issues with her, HR is concerned that she may be employed in a new company while still working for the current company, making it difficult to detect.
b) I also want to know which big companies in India allow employees to take leave during the notice period.

Thanks & Regards,
Rajiv Mitra

Company Stance on Leave and Notice Period Management

What is the company's stance on such an issue? Are there codified rules for Leave and Notice Period management? What do the terms and conditions of employment say on this issue?

Conceptually, it is wrong for the Department Head to grant her leave in this manner because:
- She may not be able to properly hand over charge of her work.
- She may not be able to complete "clearance" formalities in time.
- It sets a bad precedent that others will want to use, making it difficult for the company to deny except with arbitrary authority.

However, looking at it differently, consider that if the Dept Head were not to grant this leave, the company would have insisted that she works for each day during the notice period (during this period she may or may not have "worked" and could have vitiated the atmosphere), and you would have paid her for the month. And she would have left having happily complied with the terms and conditions of employment.

In the present scenario, you are going to pay her for the month anyway as she is granted leave out of the leave lying to her credit!

Normally, it is possible for the company to pay her all her dues, including one month's salary in lieu of the notice period, accept and implement her resignation with immediate effect, and ask her to stop coming to work forthwith. This is because resigned employees (not necessarily, as a rule) tend to ignore work commitments during the notice period!

But all that I am saying is limited by what is stipulated in the terms and conditions of employment. The provisions of the employment contract will prevail if no law is involved, and in this case, no law is involved anyway.

Your Department Head's decision is administratively incorrect for the reasons already stated. Further, he has not taken company interests into account while making a decision on an important matter without involving HR.

I hope I have provided clear perspectives on the subject. Further queries, if any, will be answered!

Regards,
Samvedan
March 14, 2011

Further to the above scenario, I am adding this piece of information to give a clearer picture of the same.

1. We have no rule written in the contract letter that states that one can't take PL/SL during the notice period.

2. We never circulated any such advice to our employees in emails or through circulars ever.

HR is in a tussle with the HOD of the same department on the same issue; hence, I can't say what the company's stand will be. But we are fighting this case, as in the past, many cases have been recorded where the employee was in a dual payroll, and we have taken legal steps in such cases.

I also want to know which are the big companies in India that allow employees to take leave during the notice period.

Thanks & Regards,
Rajiv Mitra