Thanks so much to everyone for taking time to respond to my question, I really feel obliged to see the time you all have spent in responding to this issue or problem statement. Thanks a lot for everyone's time and suggestions!
Let me pls state a few facts here, which might make things clearer:
- I went to Kerala, not to give any interview. I had already given a few rounds of telephonic and skype interviews around a month back. I was later sent a soft copy of the offer letter, and I went to Kerala to join the company there.
- The company HR shared all those restrictions when I met them in person in their Kerala office, on the day of joining the company. Having said that, they shared everything verbally and not in writing.
- Initially the company never stated that they would re-imburse any expenses whatsoever - neither verbally nor in writing. But later, it was only at the time of joining, as a part of my discussions with the company HR, the HR manager stated(verbally) that he would get my expenses reimbursed as this had happenned only because the specific restrictions were not shared with me transparently before I came to Kerala. Had this been shared earlier, I shall have said NO from here rather than going all the way to Kerala and coming back. But now, the same HR manager is not responding to any of my phone calls. I feel that right now, he might even refute his own verbal statement in which he agreed to get my expenses reimbursed.
- I can understand upto some extent that a company or an establishment cannot be held liable/accountable for the expenses incurred by the whole family, which still makes sense.
Let me try to summarize my questions here:
1. If an individual has not yet joined a company, and there is a dispute/disagreement between the individual and the employer, is this in the scope of Indian Labour Court/s? Or does the role of labour court come into picture only after an individual has joined a company/organization?
2. Considering that a firm/organization intentionally hides some information from an individual who is supposed to be joining the firm/organization, which would directly influence his decision to join the company or not, the individual is at loss either of the ways:
i) If he decides not to join the company, he has to bear the loss of all the travel expenses.
ii)If he joins, irrespective of his willingness, he has to abide by all the stringent rules/restrictions, which he was earlier never aware of. Some people might join the company looking at the loss they might incur if they don't join. All that I am trying to say is that it negatively influences an individual's right to make a free decision without any compulsions.
The question that I have here is - Is there no provision in the indian law(labour or civil, etc.) which can safeguard an individual's right to make a non compelling free decision to join a firm/establishment? Some provision which controls/restricts a firm or an organization to not use wrong means of recruitment/hiring as a result of which individuals might need to suffer either economically or he might end up losing his previous job?