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ULooking for some real advice on what options exist here.
There’s a Korean-owned American company operating out of Chennai that manufactures compact construction equipment, with an office in Bengaluru.
Last year, they terminated five employees following an internal investigation into a Ponzi scheme that was running inside the company. The terminated employees were involved, they recruited people, they played their part, and the consequences are fair. No argument there.
Here’s where it gets completely unacceptable.
The company is refusing to issue relieving letters to these terminated employees. We’re talking months now. Their careers are at a full stop. Meanwhile, the individual who actually architected the entire scheme, recruited everyone and got the whole thing rolling, he resigned before the investigation even launched, landed a job abroad, and walked away with a spotless record and a full relieving letter. Zero consequences. Absolutely zero.
And it gets worse.
Approximately 50 factory floor employees participated in the scheme. Recruited family, friends, expanded the whole operation. Their outcome? Written warnings. That’s it. Still employed, still collecting paychecks. One individual received a one-month suspension. That was the harshest penalty on that entire side of the workforce.
Now, here’s where the hypocrisy becomes impossible to ignore.
A female HR employee in middle management was enrolled in the scheme. She wasn’t a passive participant. She invested significant money and knew exactly what she was getting into. Her outcome? A warning. Still employed. Still sitting in the HR department. The same HR department that conducted the investigation and signed off on every single termination recommendation.
Let that sink in for a moment.
The HR professional who was personally implicated in the scheme gets protected almost certainly due to proximity to senior leadership, while regular employees get terminated and then denied the basic documentation they need to move forward professionally. This isn’t a gray area. This is textbook selective enforcement.
For the record, IT employees who were recruited into the scheme also received warnings and minor suspensions. Still employed. No issues whatsoever.
The terminated employees sent a formal legal notice over a month ago, explicitly requesting their relieving letters and laying out every one of these inconsistencies in detail. The company’s response? Complete silence. No acknowledgment, no receipt confirmation, nothing. From what’s understood, there are internal discussions happening about how to handle it, but externally, the strategy appears to be running out the clock and hoping this quietly disappears.
This is expat leadership treating local employees as entirely expendable. The HR head is Korean, rotates out every three to four years, operates with zero accountability, and the message to Indian employees couldn’t be clearer.
Looking for input on the following.
Is withholding relieving letters legally defensible under these circumstances?
Given the documented evidence of inconsistent disciplinary action, what legal remedies are actually available?
When a company goes completely dark after receiving legal notice, what are the legitimate next steps?
Has anyone dealt with similar situations involving Korean multinationals operating in India?
To anyone ready to comment that these employees were involved in a Ponzi scheme and deserve what they got, that’s not the argument. The argument is inconsistent application of consequences. If you’re going to terminate people, apply the same standard across the board. You don’t get to shield your HR staff and senior-adjacent employees while making examples out of everyone else.
And the fact that the individual who built the entire scheme from the ground up is currently employed abroad with zero professional consequences, while the people he recruited are stuck in career limbo without relieving letters, that’s not just unfair. It’s genuinely indefensible.
Any advice is appreciated.
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