The Battle Continues Between Grofers & The Students

Earlier this year, Grofers revoked offer letters of over 67 students from colleges all over the country. As claimed in the offer letters received on June 27th, the students had already moved to Gurgaon to start working with the company. But on June 30^th, the offers were revoked and the HR claimed that it was “Owing to market conditions and changes which affect their business”. Soon after, 20 students sent a legal notice to Grofers, and following this the company has received 17 more such notices.

Grofers promised to share their resumes with headhunters and consultants, to help get them other jobs, but the students were not happy with this and wanted more done by Grofers for this big adjustment in their lives. The students brought on board MyAdvo, a legal tech firm, to fascilitate this case and connect the students with expert lawyers. “Getting a lawyer from the traditional route was not helpful at all for some of them as the lawyers were not able to provide a clear timeline and there was also no one who could be held accountable,” said MyAdvo in a statement.

After the legal notice was issued, Grofers responded by saying:

“It is commonplace for candidates to be issued letters of intent, which by their nature are legally not binding on either party. While your client may have been shortlisted by the company as a part of the recruitment process followed by it, until acceptance of the offer by execution of the Company’s ‘Appointment Letter’, there exists no employer-employee or other contractual relationship between your client and the Company. As such, either your client or the company may have chosen not to proceed with the offer made until the contractual relationship was made.”

Now, Grofers has asked the students to withdraw their allegations within 14 days of when they received the notice on 4^th of August. “Any ill-advised action that your client may seek to take shall be vehemently opposed by the company and shall be at the sole risk and cost of your client, any costs and expenses incurred by the company in defending claims shall also be sought to be recovered from your client,” was what the notice said.

This isn’t the first time a company has deferred job offers after a campus visit. Flipkart got into trouble as well when they were threatened to get blacklisted from recruiting on all IIM campus. On campuses, these companies are trusted brands and it’s a big deal for students to get noticed and selected by such brands. And once a student has received an offer letter from a company, they are not allowed to apply for other placement opportunities, which leaves them in a difficult situation when something like this happens.

Only time will tell how this will turn out and for the sake of the students, we hope that everything sorts itself out as soon as possible.