Dear HR Professionals,

A certain Miss Aarti Chouhan, goes thru the entire recruitment process and accepts the offer letter dtd 04.10.06 - for the post of 'Sr officer' Back office operations, accepting to join on 16.10.06.

She does not turn up on 16.10.06, instead sends in a mail that she has joined our firm at a different location on 13.10.06.

On enquiry we realise that she has joined us as Mrs. Sunita Verma at a different location, as an 'Asst Manager Operations' on 13.10.06.

1) Our application letter has a column wherein a candidate needs to clarify if he/she has attended any interview with us or any of our group companies, in the past six months She has mentioned as NO, Her claim is that she has never done so as Mrs. Sunita Verma 2) Her husband (who claims to be a lawyer by profession), telephonically threatens the Regional Operations Head with a legal notice, if she is NOT allowed to continue as an 'Asst Manager Operations'

How to address this issue?

PS: (names changed to protect identity)

Warm regards,

Wilfred

Dear wilfred, 

Tell him his wife has committed cheating punishable under Sec 420 of IPC and see his reaction.

Legally speaking she has given committed wrong act by suppressing her marital status, suppressing her 2 different identities and generally duped the company by willfull non-disclousure of material fact in both the offices. u have enough grounds to terminate her service for violation of basic contract norms (refer Indian Contracts Act 1872 in this regard).

But prior to initiating such, find out if any affidavit for change of name has been done, her mariage certificate and particlarly the date of occurance of those events to buttres your position. i guess all application form for recruitment has a clause that if any declared information is found false at a later date, candidature / appointment gets forfieted with retrospective effect. Implement that clause. I guess we all require clean employees at first and then good employees.

Cheers

Jac

A very intresting case indeed and a good opportunity for all in HR to learn. the possible solutions that can be.

1) look at the date's when the employee had applied and was interviewed. was she during that time married. If yes then legal action can be taken by company for providing misleading information in both the case's and on that account the company can remove the employee.

2) if the employee is still in probation period which i assume tro be than as per employment agreement the management can ask the employee to leave by paying the remeunration mentioned or notice time.

3) if the employee goes to legal court. the document signed by the employee can be put has evidence and can be charged for forgery and 420 case.

4) the company should also look at doing refrence check and ensure that claims made by the candidate are true if they are not then the employee can be terminated.

this are the possible solutions i can think at this time. probably some of the senior members would be able to throw more light on this subject from labour law perspective.

Regards

srini