Existing employees - fine to issue new appointment letters with the current date?

Hi, I have joined an organization wherein appointment letters are not issued for most of the existing employees. Can you please suggest from the legal requirement perspective if it is fine to issue new appointment letters with the current date to regularize the process of issuing appointment letters to all existing employees.

My suggestion is, issue the appointment letters with their actual date of joining. Otherwise, your data will be mismatched. In accounts, it will show some other date and in HR records some other date and this will create problems during Audits and not good for Employees as well as their Experience on paper will be shown less.

The policy of not issuing appointment letter is petty and it actually serves no purpose. Yes, there will be no records regarding appointment but then the appointment can be proved by other circumstantial evidence and there would be plenty of them. Like a copy of attendance registers or even e-means used, the record of instructions received, use of official means of communication etc etc. So it does not really help. Now that it is proposed to issue it, the best option is to appoint from the original date itself, but have a proper designation, pay and other terms and conditions including the period of probation, notice period etc. An employee has to feel wanted in his workplace, issuing an appointment order confirms that feeling.

At this stage, even in the absence of appointment letter, the contract of employment is complete.

It is fine to give appointment letter on current date stating your date of joining as per records is---and your salary, at the time of joining was----
Col.Suresh Rathi