Remedy against termination
Umesh
(Querist) 03 May 2013
This query is : Resolved
One of my friends work in a reputed IT company. She was onsite at Mumbai and was eligible for reumbursement of expenses (food items only) worth Rs. 18,000/- plus Out of Pocket Expenses of Rs. 3000/- per month. During the period of 1 month, she had gathered bills (most of them were handwritten) and submitted them for reumbursement. Many bills were of nature when she had gone collectively with multiple group of employees and where she had paid the amount on behalf of others and claimed them as reumbursements.
At many times, she had done the expenses but forgot to take the bills. Subsequently, she went to the hotel and collected them next day or during the course of 1 month by requesting for bills. Since, she was not remembering amounts, some hotel owners gave her bills in tune with the amount spent earlier. At some places, hotel owners gave her blank bills to fill her herself. As such, out of the bills submitted, we can say that some were not true bills.
These bills were submitted and claimed. Before the claim was settled, twice the company accounting dept representatives asked her on call as to whether these bills were for individual or for a group. On the calls, she explained the situation that she has paid whole amount on behalf of group and she has claimed. She also stated on call that if on a day somebody has paid on her behalf then she has not claimed the amount. However, when again third time a mail came, she was so pissed off that she wrote that they were for self and she has a very good apetite. The bills were processed and passed.
During the audit, the auditor brought these heavy amount bills to the notice of company. Subsequently when HR called her for one to one meeting, she corrected her stand by apologising the mistake and gave in wirting that the bills were for group.
From second and third month onwards, the company rejected all handwritten bills(please note that for first month same hand written bills were passed) saying that there is a corporate guidelines of not passing the handwritten bills and they sent the mail to that effect.
3 months after the first bill was sanctioned, HR again called her for scrutiny saying that they are giving her the option of confirming if all bills are correct or not else they will start inquiry. She confirmed the same. (however, some of the bills were not genuine)
Query: - If HR do hold the inquiry and finds that some of the bills were not genuine, can they terminate her services, particularly when the company itself has now brought the guidelines that handwritten bills are not acceptable and will not be paid. If the bills were not acceptable, why they were paid in the first month. The policy guidelines were never circulated but were stated on the mail from second & third month onwards. If the handwritten bills are not acceptable to company can it terminate the services of employee for wrongly accepting & settling such handwritten bills, even some of them were fake?
Nadeem Qureshi
(Expert) 03 May 2013
contact a lawyer personally with all the documents
R.K Nanda
(Expert) 03 May 2013
consult local lawyer.
Guest
(Expert) 03 May 2013
About your statement, "if the bills were not acceptable, why they were paid in the first month," do you think that if some omission has been made in santioning the bills in one month, the irregularity should be repeated every time by the expenditure approving authority?
Satisfaction of the sanctioning authority is a must before sanction of expenditure. Your friend is bound to prove the genuineness of bills if submitted for claim. If not, termination cannot be avoided.
Sudhir Kumar, Advocate
(Expert) 04 May 2013
you know the bills are bogus. So the company will be justified in termination by following the procedure.
