Employee Bonds: Can Management Legally Stop You from Leaving Before a Year?

Can a company's management prevent an employee from leaving after signing a one-year bond? How legally binding is the bond? If an employee is unwilling to continue, what are the potential consequences? Please provide your suggestions.

Dear Asha-Posupo, please provide us with more information about your query. When did the employee join? What was the duration of the lock-in period of the employment? Was the agreement made on non-judicial stamp paper, etc.? Why does the employee wish to leave? What efforts has the employer made to dissuade the employee from breaching the agreement? What will be the impact on the organization if the employee quits the employment before the completion of the lock-in period?

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

Hi Asha, you need to provide more information before we can give a proper answer. However, a bond is valid in India only in certain circumstances. It is mostly valid where you have provided some specialized training to the employee, and the bond is intended to cover those expenses. Mostly, courts have discarded bonds where the training was not formal classroom training given by external trainers, but again, it depends on circumstances.

In any case, you cannot prevent him from leaving or force him to work where he does not wish to. At best, you can ask him to pay the amount of the bond and can file a civil suit for the same.

Once mutually agreed and signed, the bond requires both the employer and employee to fulfill its terms and conditions. Leaving in the middle may negatively impact the employee's career. Even in a court of law, the bond is valid if it is duly registered.

@Jagdeeshwara, Bonds and agreements in restraint of trade and profession are not considered valid in India. Therefore, bonds are valid only in certain circumstances. The bonds are valid as a means of recovery of costs incurred for training; neither the bond nor agreement can force a person to work in a job he does not want to work.