How Can I Get My Relieving Letter When My Ex-Employer Is Holding It Back?

Recently, I resigned from my previous employer, which is one of the worst companies I have worked for. They lack professionalism and corporate culture, and their staff is also quite unprofessional. Therefore, I decided to resign from this company and accepted another opportunity elsewhere. As I mentioned, they do not have established processes. I asked them to relieve me in 3 days, although they have a 1-month notice period. They sent an email regarding my resignation and my last working day, which was 31st August 2016. Management was ready to relieve me in 3 days.

I requested my employer to issue my relieving and experience letter on my last working day, as these were mandatory documents for joining another company. Here comes the twist: until the last day of working, no one raised any concerns regarding my relieving letter or notice period. Now, they are refusing to release my relieving and experience letters, stating that since I did not serve the 1-month notice period, they cannot release the letters on such short notice. However, they had already accepted my resignation by email, stating:

“We are accepting your resignation. You are relieved on 31-Aug-2016. Your relieving letter will be issued by 25th September 2016.”

My new joining date was 01-Sep-2016, and now it is on hold as my new employer is asking for my relieving letter. Please help me handle the current scenario. Should I ask my ex-employer to release my relieving letter by a legal notice?

Note: In my previous employment contract, there was a clause to serve a notice period of one month; nothing else was mentioned.

Regards

Please help me with this issue; any advice will be greatly appreciated. I have resigned from my previous company and am unable to join a new company due to the lack of a relieving letter.

It is very clear from your post that management has accepted your resignation and clarified its motive as per your appointment advice/clause and the relieving letter issuing date. Don't be oversmart by giving a legal notice to obtain an experience letter. The ball is in the employer's court, and your attitude must be polite to receive your paperwork. Print your resignation acceptance email and contact your future employer, either through a personal meeting or email, requesting an opportunity for early joining.

This is my personal opinion on the matter, but you are free to choose your own course of action.

Thanks

Handling Notice Period and Relieving Letter Issues

Actually, you need to buy out the notice period. As suggested by Mr. Rajesh Kumar Dubey, approach the HR/Management and request them to provide the letter or talk to your prospective employer to allow you to join with the mail or to extend the joining date to 26th Sept 2016. You can also get confirmation from the prospective employer about the reimbursement of the buyout amount of the notice period, pay the notice period amount to the present employer, obtain clearance, relieving, and service certificates, and then join.

As far as I am concerned, you don't have any logical basis for a legal fight. I suggest not wasting your career by pursuing legal action as it takes a lot of time and money. At the same time, professional organizations don't like to recruit people with this type of background.