No relieving letter - absconded from a company due to reasons related to COVID 19

I am currently working in a big 4 just for a year after masters.

3 years ago, I absconded from a company due to reasons related to COVID 19. I know I couldn't have done that. That tenure was only of 14 days. I didn't get any salary at that time. But they opened PF account. However, I didn't face any issue in my current employment as I didn't show that experience on my CV or anywhere else.

I reached out to my previous employer. Previous employer has denied giving a relieving letter in spite of offering to paying in lieu. He is reluctant not to give it.

However, I have heard that companies like TCS create issues for such problems. So I am very much worried about this issue of not having relieving letter from one the previous employers. I am looking to change a job in a year.

Which MNCs consider such situations if the candidate provides other documents?

What should I do? Has anyone been in this situation before? Feeling very helpless and anxious.

Is my career doomed?

A lot of employees face situations like this. Without foreseeing the future, they just abandon the job and when they find that UAN created is linked to their adhar and there is no way to hide the UAN, approach the company with a request to issue relieving order. The employer then retaliate or turns hostile.

Legally, there is no issue if you do not furnish a relieving order from a company where you did not have a reasonable service. You can skip the services you don't want to show. The reason for not showing the service may be numerous, it may be the role which was different from what you expected before joining, it may be the culture of the organisation which you did not like and so on. Once you reveal it, the matter could be solved. But when a background verification process is outsourced, the agency which does it takes it very seriously (as if it is their duty to act as detectives!) and record these in their reports. The company will then be liable to do an enquiry in to these gaps and then a take a call about the future of the candidate. So long as your service is inevitable and your joining cannot be postponed, you are safe. But in the case of elastic demand, the company will hold it for months till they get a convincing reply. This is the fact.