Are Consultants Entitled to Experience and Relieving Letters Under Labor Law?

Dear All, this is my first post, so apologies if I have broken any rules while posting the content or the method. Feedback is appreciated if any. I want to know if there is any labor law that specifies that the experience and relieving letter is only given to full-time employees and not needed for a consultant role (an employee and employer relationship based on a year-on-year consultancy agreement).

Please clarify the role of the consultant. A few organizations hire external consultants to avail of the benefits of expertise in a specific field. These consultants are not employees, and provisions of labor laws do not apply to them.

If the company has hired the services of an external consultant, then it must have issued the Purchase Order (PO) to the consultant. If not a PO, then some agreement must have been made. Therefore, for a consultant, either a PO or a legal agreement will suffice for the purpose of an experience letter.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar