Can Company Terminate Employee After Resignation Acceptance?

My friend has resigned from a company and is in the notice period. His resignation was accepted. Now the company is trying to terminate him a week before his end date. What are the options available? Should he apply for leave on LOP basis for the rest of the days? What if the company still terminates him? Can the company actually do this as the company's conduct looks suspicious here?

Dear Sir,

With reference to your query, the company is right in its decision to terminate the service of an employee during the notice period. As such, the resignation of the employee has been accepted; therefore, the employee has no option but to settle his full and final dues in this case.

Basically, leaves are subject to the Leave Rules of the Company. If the rules permit availing leave during the notice period, the employee can take such leaves. Generally, such leaves are not allowed by the management. In my opinion, if the employee is under the notice period and the company has accepted his resignation, there is nothing suspicious in this.

Regards,

R.B. Rao
Advocate

Dear Inderpal,

It is not clear to me why the management should terminate the services of the employee during the notice period after accepting his resignation. In case of any pending disciplinary action initiated earlier on charges of serious misconduct, the management may do so after following all the procedures. However, in such a situation, the resignation would not have been accepted at all. Therefore, it would be better to provide more inputs.

Thank you.

Many people here tend to make postings by hiding facts. There is an old saying, "never tell a lie to your doctor and lawyer." The same thing is applicable to HR consultants here as well! You can post your query anonymously, and we will safeguard your identity. But professionals here can give you correct advice only if the correct query is posted, without hiding any facts.

They say that the client has filed a complaint against him. However, either the complaint came during the notice period, or even if it arrived earlier, no action was initiated before the notice period. I think they are just trying to harass him and set an example for other employees, as there have been many resignations from the company in the last few months.

If the individual is a workman under the Industrial Disputes Act, he can raise a dispute. Otherwise, if he is a person employed under the Shops and Establishments Act, he can prefer an appeal to the authority under the Act or else institute a civil suit claiming for damages.

Company can terminate an employee during their notice period on grounds of misconduct, under disciplinary grounds. They cannot terminate an employee without mentioning any reason. You can file a lawsuit against the company if you don't want any issues with them. The resignation acceptance letter is the basis for joining another organization.

Yes.

But well-governed and administered companies will not do such things. If something unexpected happens during the notice period or some older event gets revealed during the notice period, then the company can consider termination as an option. It all depends on the nature of the event and the seriousness of the issue.

Hello Inderpal07,

Since you are a new member of this forum, it’s understandable that you may not know it.

Like N.K. Sundaram pointed out, unless you give all and complete facts right at the beginning, you can only expect half-baked suggestions that most likely will lead you or your friend to more trouble than a solution.

You mentioned, "They say that the client has made a complaint against him. But either the complaint came in the notice period or even if it came earlier, no action was initiated before the notice period."

You yourself aren't sure of this fact. If you really wanted to help your friend (or for whichever purpose you posted this issue in this forum), you could have checked out the details and then posted them. Also, 'complaint' can mean anything. To the one who is the 'target', it could mean atrocious, to the company it could mean 'well-deserved', and to others like the members of this forum, it could be quite something else unless the details of what the complaint was all about come to the fore.

Hope you get the point.

This also leads one to another issue that's also not very common: "Valuing others' time as you would your own".

Regards,

TS

Dear Inderpal,

Resignation is accepted after the no dues process. A release letter is produced within a few days, and the resignation letter passes through the working department to HRD. This means that no officer found any fault, forgery, or misconduct by the employee. However, if an employee is relieved, the company cannot take any action because they are no longer an employee of the company. The resignation will be under process.