Appointment letter for clinic staff: what the contract must say The clauses, the statutory format under the OSH Code rules, and the ones that will not hold.

An appointment letter for clinic staff should carry the sixteen particulars in the statutory format under the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (Central) Rules, 2026, and then the clinic's own terms: pay date, deductions, leave, probation, notice, duties, misconduct and confidentiality. The statutory duty to issue the letter bites at ten or more workers; a four-person clinic is not forced to use the format, but a letter built on it answers every question a labour inspector, a bank or a court could ask. What the letter should not carry is a non-compete that runs after the employee leaves, because section 27 of the Indian Contract Act makes that kind of restraint void.

Is an appointment letter compulsory for a clinic?

For an establishment of ten or more workers, yes. The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 came into force on 21 November 2025 under S.O. 5321(E). Section 6(1)(f) lists among the employer's duties to "issue a letter of appointment to every employee on his appointment in the establishment, with such information and in such form as may be prescribed by the appropriate Government and where an employee has not been issued such appointment letter on or before the commencement of this Code, he shall, within three months of such commencement, be issued such appointment letter". That three-month window closed on 21 February 2026 for staff hired before the Code. Section 2(1)(v) defines "establishment" as a place where any trade, business or occupation "is carried on in which ten or more workers are employed".

The format is in the Central Rules. Rule 6 of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (Central) Rules, 2026, notified as G.S.R. 345(E) on 8 May 2026, says "No employee shall be employed in any establishment unless an appointment letter has been issued to such employee in the format given below". The Central Rules bind establishments for which the Central Government is the appropriate Government; for a private clinic the State Government is, and several states had draft OSH rules out for comment in 2026. Until your state's rules are notified, the Central format is the model to follow, and it is what most state drafts copy.

The sixteen items in the statutory format

The clauses a clinic adds under "any other information"

Pay date, mode and deductions

State the wage period as one month and the pay date as on or before the 7th of the following month; section 17(1)(iv) of the Code on Wages, 2019 requires monthly wages "before the expiry of the seventh day of the succeeding month". Say wages are paid by bank transfer (section 15 allows cash, cheque, bank credit or electronic mode). List the deductions the clinic may make, drawn only from section 18(2): fines, absence from duty, loss of money the employee must account for where attributable to neglect or default, recovery of advances, statutory levies, and social-security contributions. Our post on paying clinic staff by bank transfer explains why cash above ₹10,000 a day is a tax problem.

Hours, weekly off and leave

Write the daily hours, the spread-over for a morning and evening OPD, the weekly off, and the leave entitlement with the section of the state Shops and Establishments Act it comes from. An agreement for less than the Act is void under provisions like section 24 of the Delhi Act. Our post on a leave policy for clinic staff has the figures for two states and the OSH Code.

Probation and confirmation

Probation is a matter of contract, not statute, in the Codes we read. State the period, the date confirmation is due, and that silence at the end of the period means confirmation. Probation does not shorten the leave or minimum-wage entitlement, and a probationer who stays counts towards every head-count threshold from the first day.

Notice and termination

State the notice period on either side and whether pay in lieu is allowed. Several state Shops Acts fix a minimum notice for employees past a qualifying period; read your state's section on termination before you pick a number. Whatever the notice, section 17(2) of the Code on Wages requires final wages "within two working days" of removal, dismissal or resignation.

Misconduct, including sexual harassment

Section 19(i) of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013 requires every employer to "treat sexual harassment as a misconduct under the service rules and initiate action for such misconduct". The appointment letter is a small clinic's service rules, so name it there, alongside the obvious items: theft, falsifying the day book, sharing patient records, intoxication on duty. Our post on the POSH Act for small clinics covers the rest of that Act.

Confidentiality and patient data

The clinic is the Data Fiduciary for its patients' records under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and section 8(1) makes it responsible for compliance "irrespective of any agreement to the contrary". Section 8(5) requires it to protect personal data "by taking reasonable security safeguards to prevent personal data breach", and rule 6(1)(b) of the DPDP Rules, 2025 names "appropriate measures to control access to the computer resources" among the minimum safeguards. The clinic cannot hand that duty to the receptionist, but it can bind the receptionist to the clinic's rules: no patient data on personal phones, no sharing outside the clinic's systems, report any suspected breach the same day, return and delete everything on leaving. Section 8(6) and rule 7 give the clinic a 72-hour clock to report a breach to the Data Protection Board, which only works if staff report inside the clinic first. Our post on a staff confidentiality undertaking describes the clause in full.

The clause to leave out: a post-employment non-compete

Clinic owners sometimes add a line forbidding the receptionist or nurse from joining another clinic within five kilometres for a year. The Supreme Court restated the rule in Vijaya Bank v. Prashant B Narnaware (2025 INSC 691, 14 May 2025): "Section 27 of the Contract Act provides every agreement which restrains a person from exercising a lawful profession, trade or business of any kind is to that extent void. A sole exception is carved out in the proviso with regard to sale of goodwill of a business". The Court repeated the long-standing distinction from Niranjan Shankar Golikari: a negative covenant that operates during the employment, such as not working for anyone else while on the clinic's rolls, is "not therefore a restraint of trade", but a restriction that applies after the contract ends falls under section 27.

So an exclusivity clause for the period of employment stands; a post-employment non-compete does not, and including one only tells a future dispute that the letter was drafted without care. Confidentiality survives termination on its own terms and is the clause that protects the clinic's patient list and fee schedule; the non-compete adds nothing enforceable.

Issuing the letter

1. Prepare two copies on the clinic's letterhead, dated on or before the date of joining.
2. Fill the sixteen statutory items first, then the clinic's clauses, then the signature block for the employer; rule 6 allows a digital signature.
3. Have the employee sign both copies as received; keep one on file with the ID copies, the confidentiality undertaking and the POSH acknowledgment.
4. For staff hired before 21 November 2025 in a clinic of ten or more workers, issue the letter now if it was missed; the Code's three-month window has already run.
5. Re-issue a short letter on every change of wages, designation or type of employment, so the file matches the wage register.