Employee has right to resign, cannot be forced to continue unless organisation rule stipulates it: Supreme Court

When an employee has tendered his resignation, the company cannot force him to continue in its employment. This holds true unless the company has a rule that stipulates otherwise or it is part of the employee’s appointment order or there is a disciplinary action pending against the employee. The Supreme Court bench of Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Vineet Saran observed that acceptance of resignation is not required in case a notice has been given of 30 days. [caption id=“attachment_5534481” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Supreme Court. PTI[/caption] The ruling pertains to a case of Sanjay Jain who had earlier worked with Air India. He worked in the airline for 5 years and decided to resign after that. Accordingly, Jain tendered his resignation and gave a 30-day notice period. After completing his notice period, Jain joined Jet Airways. He approached Air India as his dues were pending including provident fund, grautity and unpaid wages, LiveLaw said. Air India, however, told Jain that his resignation was not accepted. It also said that Jain would have to report for duty. After this, Jain decided to approach the Bombay High Court only to get his write petition rejected. Jain later approached the Supreme Court where the bench said that there was no need for acceptance of his resignation as the employee had served the notice period.