Can an Employee Be Fired for Supporting a Spouse's Criminal Activities? Seeking Advice

Question about Employee Conduct and Termination

This is a slightly twisted question that my operations heads have asked me. We are a telecom company, and over the past few months, there have been repeated thefts at our sites by a man posing as our company staff. He was caught by our law and order team along with the local police and was remanded. However, the accused person's wife, who works as HR in a major IT giant, provided surety and released him on bail. This happened twice.

Now, my seniors are asking if we send a notice to the IT company where the wife works, stating her support for the miscreant activities of her husband and her moral stand of standing as a guarantor for bail not once but twice, will her employer terminate her services? Or is there a provision for her employer to terminate her services based on this reason? Please provide your inputs.

Dear colleague, apparently, there is no connection between HR's employment in her current job and her decision to bail out her husband for his alleged criminal act. Therefore, her employer has no legal standing to take action against her for an unrelated act of her husband, which cannot serve as a valid basis.

However, we should question the HR professional whether she would have taken the same course of action if her husband had committed the same offense while working for the same organization as her.

It appears that the HR professional has compromised her professional values by involving herself in bailing out her husband for his alleged criminal activities not just once, but twice.

Regards, Vinayak Nagarkar HR Consultant

Lady HR's act of being a guarantor for bail for her husband is considered her personal activity outside her employer's workplace. The employer may not be able to terminate her, particularly on this basis. However, if you pass on this information to her employer, her credibility as an HR professional may come into question, potentially impacting her relationship with her employer and causing moral concerns.

On the other hand, as theft has occurred twice, it is advisable to review and improve your security arrangements by implementing more stringent security systems and procedures.

Dear Lakshmichandar,

The proposed move suggested by your top brass seems to have arisen under the premise of vicarious liability of the said lady HR working elsewhere pertaining to bailing her husband out in the early stage of the criminal trial against him for theft.

Normally, criminal law stays away from the doctrine of vicarious liability in the case of a person who is in no way connected with the criminal act of another person unless criminal liability can be fixed on them under criminal conspiracy or abetment in the offense.

Being the spouse of the person charged with the crime of theft and impersonation, it is natural for a wife to stand as a guarantor in a bail petition. Simply put, it is a legal right and moral commitment arising out of her matrimonial relationship with the accused. That cannot be construed as an act of criminal conspiracy or abetment in the alleged crime.

Therefore, apart from the question of your management's locus standi to make such a request to another employer to terminate the services of his employee not at all connected with the crime committed in your premises by her husband for exercising her legal right to bail out her husband, I am doubtful whether such a request would be considered at all by the other employer.

Dear colleagues,

It is a moot point whether the telecom company should write to the lady HR's employer to take action against her for bailing out her husband, who is allegedly involved in theft. Getting bail is a legal right, and that does not mean her husband is acquitted; it is part of the whole legal process.

In my view, there is no cause for any action, let alone the termination of the lady HR at this stage. Her employer should take a prudent view both legally and morally.

Having said that, I reiterate my earlier view that the lady HR has compromised her professional values by supporting her husband's yet unproven acts of theft.

Regards, Vinayak Nagarkar HR Consultant