Job Abandonment - Regd. AD has come back for no acceptance

I would like to ask the fraternity here, we have had an employee who has abandoned the job without serving his notice. He also owes the company a certain amount against a Training course for which he was sent. We have sent him mails and letters to which he does not respond and Regd. AD has come back for no acceptance. Even if we think of sending him a Legal notice, where can we send as he is no longer available on the addresses available in our database.

The official endorsement of " No Acceptance " on a registered letter sent by post to any person at his last known address means " Refusal " by the addressee which in effect would amount to "service of the letter". It also implies that he lives/ resides in the same address. So legal notice, if any can be further sent to him/her at the same address. Simultaneous Publication in local vernacular and English editions of some popular News Papers would be more effective means of service of communication to the absconder.

1. You have sent a regd letter to his last known address and that's sufficient. It doesn't matter whether the addressee received or not. Legally, if you post it on 1st it is deemed to have been delivered on 3rd / 5th working day (depending upon the location), provided the address is mentioned completely (as given by the employee at the time of joining)
2. You can send the letter through email which is accepted as proof by courts.
3. If there is no response for 15 days, you can mark as abscond. Send a letter as well as through email.
4. You have not mentioned the amount you spent for training. If its under 5000, better to write it off. Certainly he won't pay and a litigation is waste of time and resources

It is not just the amount but a message we would want to pass on to the employees, he was a freelance trainer so a relieving letter hardly matters to him. The total recovery amounts to around Rs.70K.