Resignation and disciplinary procedures under Employment Law

Published by The Daily Star  October 06, 2020 (Link Here)

Resignation and disciplinary procedures under Employment Law By Barrister Omar Khan Joy, Advocate, Supreme Court of Bangladesh. He is the head of the chambers of a renowned law firm, namely, ‘Legal Counsel’, which has expertise mainly in commercial law, family law, employment law, land law, banking law, constitutional law, criminal law, and IPR.

Barrister Omar Khan Joy
Query

I have been working in an organisation as a senior executive. I have formally resigned from my employment after 4 years of my service and my resignation got accepted by the organisation on the next day. After that, my office email got deactivated within 8 days; but later I received a show cause letter from my organisation on my personal email with 10 points of allegations of which some are not true at all. I want to know if an organisation can issue a show cause after accepting my resignation letter when I request for my compensation and other benefits as per my contract.

Anonymous

Response

Resignation is a right of the employee and the same cannot be restricted by any organisation. There may be formalities and notice period etc. but no one can be compelled to continue with the job, which will be tantamount to forced labour. Once an employee serves a notice of resignation (or surrender salary in lieu of notice), it is deemed to have been communicated on that day (assuming you hand delivered/emailed, unless such is not customary). Accordingly, it does not matter whether your employer accepted your resignation or not, as your resignation letter has already been communicated with the employer.

This is also worth noting that, after an employee serves the notice of resignation, employers do not have any legal right to withhold the resignation. The only exception is where there is already a pending disciplinary process. They cannot serve any show cause notice and start disciplinary procedure after the resignation, as he/she is no longer an employee of the organisation. Hence, in your case your former employer cannot start a disciplinary process after the resignation is effected.

As such, if the employer organisation have any allegation against any ex-employee, they can file a suit in an appropriate court based on the nature of the allegation. Therefore, there is a possibility that your ex-organisation may take such alternative action against you.

Moreover, I am giving you an overview regarding the laws related to resignation from the employment. Section 27 of Bangladesh Labour Act (BLA), 2006 states that a permanent employee may resign from his service by giving the employer 60 (sixty) days’ notice in writing. In case of temporary employee, he/she may resign from his service by giving the employer 30 (thirty) days’ notice, if he is a monthly rated employee and 14 (fourteen) days’ notice, in case of other employees, in writing.

On the other hand, where an employee intends to resign from his service without any notice, he may do so by paying the employer an amount equal to the wages for the period of notice, in lieu of notice. It is mentionable that if you are a managerial staff, you need to follow the terms of your employment for ascertaining the notice period etc. as the BLA may not apply to you.

Furthermore, an employee who resigns from the service, is entitled to all the payments of salaries, benefits, allowances, other lawful entitlements etc. applicable till the last day of work. So, here it is important to see when is the last day of your work which you have not mentioned to us, as, in accordance with that you shall be paid all the entitlements. It is to be noted here that, all final settlement payments must be made by employer to employee within a maximum period of 30 (thirty) working days following the date of cessation of the employment.