Employment Bond....how Breach-able is it ?


                                              

Most of us can remember those moments of anxiety that come with signing of a bond while joining our hard earned so much necessary new job.
And then in a few months comes a new opportunity, a better option and we start asking ourselves...what about that bond that I signed while joining. We start by calculating if the bond period is over or not or how many more days after adding notice period n all do we have. 
We weigh our options on how much bond amount we have to pay and how much will we gain. 
These questions and this situation of great dilemma...I know everyone has faced it at some moment of their career. In this blog I bring you some answers that will increase your insight in the matter and will give you some initial legal knowhow to proceed.

In Indian constitution Article 19 guarantees the right to work and this right neither can be waived of by the employee by his own will nor the employer can force any contract on him.

Any type of Employment Bonds are nothing but a private agreement between two parties which are governed by Indian Contract Act. There is nothing called Employment Bond Act etc. Such bonds are applicable only if the company has spent money on the personal grooming and enhancement of the employees, but that does not include a training that helps employees to perform better.


Common terms that are there in these agreements are :
1. The employee will serve the employer for so and so duration or he will have to pay employer so and so amount.
2. The Employee cannot join any competitor company for so and so period after leaving the Employer.

These two are quite prevalent and the most troublesome obligations of the Employment Bonds. Now what can we do about them. As an Employee it is necessary to understand that "The employee, by signing a contract of employment, does not signs a bond of slavery and, therefore, the employee always has the right to resign the employment even if he has agreed to any terms". Thus employee is free to leave job anytime no matter what he has signed. The Hon. Supreme Court of India and several High Courts have clearly stated in a number of cases that no employee can be forcefully employed against his will, just because he has signed a contract with the employer. The employer cannot hold back any personal document of the employees as well as they are earned by the employees and the company has no claim on the same.

Now what Employer can do about employee breaking a employment bond is said as remedy available to Employer in such cases. Let me cite an example here. (ref : Sicpa India Limited v Shri Manas Pratim Deb) In one case a Employer signed the bond which asked him to pay 2 lac rupees if he left the job before 3 years. The training cost that Employer cited was Rs 66000. The Employee resigned after 2 years. When Employer approached court, in the judgement the Hon. Court said that it cannot bound the employee to not resign from company but asked him to pay Rs 22000 to the Employer. This amount was calculated by dividing 66000 into 3 years and as the Employee has completed 2 years he had to pay the amount of training for third year that is Rs 22000. So you can see that even though the bond was of Rs 2 lac the Employee paid only Rs 22000.

The point here is that an Employment bond is valid only if the terms are reasonable. The definition of reasonability is not defined and thus is decided on case-to-case basis. Also the Employer is not entitled to seek for reinstatement of their employees as relief in the event of breach of bond. 

Moving on, in case of 2nd point speaking of seeking employment in competitor company, it is valid only in case where the Employer proves that joining a competitor company will harm the company . Note that it is on Employer to prove this and not on the Employee. Thus an employee can move on as per his/her will in any company.

I hope till this moment you must be feeling confident as above knowledge will mitigate most of your fears about breaking an Employment Bond. For further references you go to the below given links.



Indian Contract Act
http://csrajanadvocate.blogspot.in/2013/10/bond-is-illegal.html 
http://www.mondaq.com/india/x/237806/employee+rights+labour+relations/Enforceability+of+Employment+Bond




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Volunteer to Violenteer.....1 mistake that leads Volunteerism into Terrorism !!!1

Image
“Volunteerism”, a word that generates in every young mind a wave of enthusiasm and urge for becoming a part of a change that the combined action of all the volunteers will bring. Volunteerism is the phenomenon in which a person participates in an act by his own willingness, out of his own conscience. Such a person is called a Volunteer. A volunteer gets solace in the thought that he has done his share of duty, that he is not the one to be counted among onlookers. And this is a very big thing, not to be an onlooker but a doer .  Now talking about the transition the question arises “What actually does it takes to make this transition”? Well the answer can be found by looking back into the life to the day when we first volunteered. The answers that we will find are quite common in most cases. This transition from being an onlooker to a doer takes a lot of motivation and will power especially for the first timers. It comes from the people around us like our parents, teachers,...
Read more

COMPLAINING WIFE/GIRLFRIEND.....here is what to do...

Image
For a few days I observed that Jules complaints a lot listening to which I started to wonder howcome she has such a negative view of everything. Initially I tried to find solutions , tried to motivate her to develop a positive outlook, even tried to fight, thinking that this might bring some change in her. But all the above approaches proved futile. She is still the same.  Complaints about fitting of her socks to colour of her shirt, about the Metro to colleague in office. All day long.  Though I know it sounds irritating but as you know very well that HUSBANDS are not allowed to get irritated or angry :) . Also I didnot wanted that to happen as we have our whole life ahead and I knew that Getting irritated will not get us anywhere. So I sat thinking about it and then there  came that LIGHTBULB idea :) . I googled it and there came thousands of results. I started reading them and came to know a few facts which helped me to deal with the issue. First thing to know ...
Read more

WiReShark.......

Image
Wireshark is a well-known software in Computer Network world. In this article, I will describe it in a very simple laymen language for everyone to understand. In the Computer world, we have heard of Internet. What Internet is, is a network of many computers connected together. Now let us compare it with the world around us. It is similar like all the houses are connected by roads. If houses represent our computers than roads are the wires which are connecting them together (here let's talk only about wired networks for the sake of simplicity). Also to enter each house we need to pass through a gate. Similarly in computer networks, there are equipments known as gateways which one need to pass to communicate to a computer.  As the picture of network is clear let us move on to its use. We know that information is continuously flowing in these networks. This information is of many types. These different type of informations is received and processed by different set of rules....
Read more