Greetings to all the legal professionals and all those seeking help here!
A Brief about my Employers:
I am currently deployed at client location and on payroll of a XYZ company in a remote location. Prior to my joining, I submitted most of the documents needed for back ground check (may be not completely). However, at that time I had asked the person, if she needed any extra documents and she replied negatively. Sadly, all the conversation was on the phone. Again HR came up with the requirement of some more documents, with 2 forms to be filled, basically having similar / over lapping set of information (accounting to about 14 pages consisting of all the past employment record with a contact of a lead and HR, all the educational details, family details, passport, pancard and much more). All these forms were provided to me well in advance and I have no complains on that. I was also informed that the company would issue me an appointment letter only after the submission of the necessary documents. Then on I joined on 11th of Feb, and as per company's policy, I got paid only for 10 days, till 20th of Feb on 7th of March as the pay cycle is from 21st of Jan to 20th of Feb. Later, on however, due to the fact that, I have some of the documents in permanent residence and most of them in my temporary residence, I could not send a complete set of copies and send them a complete set in last week of March by Air mail via Indian Post (perhaps a big mistake) and I was informed that it would reach in 3 days. So I called my employers when I posted them the documents informing them about the same and again after about 10 days to verify if they had received them. They replied in negative. So I went into Post office and inquired about it, to no avail. So, even after 3 weeks they did not receive any documents and in the end, I couriered the documents via. Blue Dart and they recieved those docs this time on 17th or 18th April. But, HR informed me that since I had missed both the days i.e., 7th and 15th of April for releasing the pay to the employees, I would be paid the salary for the period 21st Feb - 20th March and 21st March - 20th April together only on 7th May; provided the verification of the documents is complete. The list of the documents needed to be submitted and the mailing address were mentioned on the offer letter. The list included a signed copy of oofer letter, past employment proofs, id/address proof, educational documents, Back ground verification forms, induction form, NDA and photogrphs. As mentioned on the offer letter, I had copied down the exact mailing address from the offer letter on the envelope and mailed it. However, when I couriered the documents second time, I called them and asked them the address only to find out that there was a mistake (wrong Road name) in the address provided in the offer letter. Now it is almost 10 days since all the documents have reached their office, yet they are finding some sweet reasons of not providing me with the appointment letter. Some times they say, the senior person is not there to sign the letter, other times the HR is on lunch and other times they call up asking me to provide some missing information (which ofcourse they could have asked me long back or does not hold any relevance).
So my questions to you are:
[1] Can they hold my pay for this month. In that event, what shall I do?
[2] They do not provide me proper salary slips. They just scan the slip and email me the tabular image. There is no company logo. So what shall I do.
[3] If I do not have an appointment letter, can it be still proved based on the email correspondence and the salary slip I have received in the email?
[4] If they provide me a wrong address, and if the documents dunt reach them, are they legally within their rights to hold my salary?
[5] Also, is it legal to maintain such a absurd pay cycle of 21st of previous month to 20th of this month and pay date on the 7th / 15 th of next month (depending on the pending time sheet approval) ?
[6] The salary break up provided to me in the offer letter was a monthly break up. Is it a valid offer letter? They had earlier told me that they would provide me the entire break up in the appointment letter. Now they say that there is no way that our system could generate an yearly offer letter and all consultants are working with the same.
Please help me out with these questions as it will help me as well as others on this forum. Meanwhile, I will also share the feedback of my interaction with the employer in this thread.
Thanks,
Bhushan.
