Dear Sumit,
Gone through your post. You appear to be detached from the current realities of the job market. In the preceding generation, job opportunities were limited hence retaining employees was not a big challenge. Today job opportunities galore. Against this backdrop employees play truant. To contain the sudden exit of the employees, companies resort to the seemingly devious means of keeping the original certificates. It acts as a hedge to ensure that the employees work as per their notice period.
In today's world, everybody wanted to work in branded companies. In that case where SMEs will go? Getting quality manpower is a huge challenge for them. They end up in getting rejects or stragglers. These people may not be that career-conscious. They do not find anything wrong with the abandonment of their employment.
My friend who runs his photo studio was fed up with sudden staff exit. Finally, he started keeping the first month's salary as the security deposit. He thought that at least for the sake of money people will stay. But this method also did not work 100% In certain cases employees reconciled with the loss of security deposit and they left anyway. Neither they cared to come back to take their first month's salary.
Legality apart, why apply ethics alone to the employers? Why not to the employees who just leave their services without any information? Are they not supposed to work as per their notice period? Let us apply ethics to both sides and not to either side. The sudden exit of employees throws the work of the employers out of gear. To maintain continuity of the work, retention of the staff is the barest necessity. Therefore, original certificates are retained out of compulsion and not to display their high-handedness.
Hope I have tried to bring out the viewpoint of other side. However, do not misinterpret it as if I am pitching for the employers.
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar
+91-9900155394