Hi,

I had joined an organization in Dec 2011, they paid only 1 month salary on time. since Jan 2012 the salary was delayed by 60 days minimum and they stopped paying after March to every employee in the organization citing financial crisis. Despite repeated requests by every employee they released only 30% of 1 month salary out of 3 months salary. Given the circumstances I resigned giving 5 days of notice period which they accepted.

But in full and final they refused to give any amount stating I did not give the notice period. This has been prevelant in the organization since its inception. I am thinking a legal recourse, please advice.

Has the company declared itself as bankrupt or is it closing down?

You should have tendered notice of resignation with effective date of resignation/last day in office and reason for resignation mentioned in it and should have let the company accept it before effective date.

It shall be good if all employees join hands and be witness to each other. You may together approach a competent and experienced service lawyer. Your lawyer may prefer to issue a legal notice.

You should not have signed acceptance on the FNF statement and should have marked comments that FNF statement is not correct and you are accepting the payment given by company under protest. You can do it now also by letter, stating that you had lodged protest to the company personnel who handed over the FNF statement, and mention the detail unpaid wages.

Company has squared off dues by deducting notice pay. All of you may take a stand that wages were not being paid and you were not able to meet both ends and hence you had no other option other to leave and notice pay should be waived off.

You can lodge complaint to Chief Inspector under SE act applicable to your state, O/o Labor Commissioner, Wages Inspector, as per explanation of employee in these act and applicable to you or file a civil suit.

The authority shall decide on Mode of Recovery of Unpaid Wages.

Delhi SE act is enclosed.

7.   Closing     of  an  establishment       to   be  communicated   to  the   Chief   Inspector.

19. Time and conditions for payment of wages.

If your salary is upto Rs.16000/pm

Payment of wages Act:

3. Responsibility for payment  of wages.- Every employer shall be

 responsible for  the payment  to persons  employed by him of all wages

 required to be paid under this Act:

4. Fixation of wage-periods.- (1) Every person responsible for the

 payment of  wages under  section 3  shall fix  periods  (in  this  Act

 referred to  as wage-periods)  in respect of which such wages shall be

 payable.

       (2) No wage-period shall exceed one month.

1. If the resignation without notice was accepted without protest/reservations, then in F & F any departure is not permissble. 

2. Furthermore the company is in gross breach of it's own contractual arrangments for which it is liable to pay damages. 

Serve them a legal notice.

Try filing S.406 Criminal Breach of Trust with police.

The company has been functioning like this forever and employees are still thinking that they would get their pending salaries soon. The company is not closing or filling for bankcrupty.

1. My resignation was accepted with the last day mentioned in the resignation letter without any mention of the notice period.

2. I did not accept the F&F that they prepared, nor did I sign any document. I told they verbally that this F&F is not acceptable to me and in case they want to know what all are the issues I find in the document they should mail me the scanned copy/excel sheet of F&F and I would reply them on the mail itself, which they again refused.

3. The employer thinks he is doing every correct by not paying salary, asking for employees to work overtime

4. There are no rules/procedures in organization - CL/PL leaves are hardly there, notice period is never mentioned at the time of generating offer letter, appraisals are not on time. I think companies like these should be shutdown before they ruin the career of others.

Atleast I am thinking of legal action, there are people who do not think that ways and suffer. This gives the employer a boost to continue functioning like this and harass employee.

It is usually mentioned on FNF statement also that employee should revert within 1 month or the contents shall be deemed to be accepted/should supply the acceptance within one month.

You may supply a communication immediately, in writing under acknowledgment to appointing authority, MD with a copy to Head-HR stating the FNF statement is wrong ( mention details) and is not accepted by you and any money that is sent to you is received under protest, and demand all due payments by bank DD thru redg . post. Do not leave any loopholes.

The employer/HR never gave a soft copy/hard copy of the F&F. It was only shown on the paper and wanted my comments in it without giving me a copy, for which I refused. In my last communication with HR I insisted on knowing the F&F calculation which was not replied by the employer/HR.

The conduct of HR is bad. Narrate the incidents in writing under acknowledgment, with detail of full name, designation, department, address, email id, phone number of company personnel including HR, by communication addressed to appointing authority, MD, of the company.

The HR might be in the practice of claiming that FNF statement was shown in office.

Offer letter is given post selection and appointment letter on joining. Has the company not been issuing appointment letter/order and declining to grant leave pay OT wages?

The employees can rake up the issue under SE Act. The eligible employees may also cite Industrial Employment Standing Orders Act.

Employees need to act to get thier dues.

Employer is avoiding giving F&F statement with a criminal motive to avoid payment of salaries.  S.406 +S.420....book them under IPC.  Don't go with ordinary civil procedures.  If you are in supervisory cadre earning more than Rs.15000/- payment of wages act is not applicable for you.  The only legal recourse left is civil court. If you take recourse to civil court it takes years together to get justice.  So best option is filing criminal case.

2 months of running pillar to post nothing seems to be working. The police has refused to take action under the pretext that no criminal case is formed. The labour commissioner office is avoiding answers, citing new excuses everytime. I have filed RTI as well for the action taken by these authorities. What else can be done except civil case?

Present and past employees are not ready to become part of any action against the MD and CEO. He is just sitting there and taking advantage of deaf/dumb employees.