Internship Stipend or Certificate Not Issued? Student Action Guide

Who this guide is for

This guide is for students and recent graduates in India whose internship at a private company has ended badly on one of two fronts: the promised stipend has not been paid, or the completion or experience certificate is being withheld. It is useful if:

• Your offer email or internship letter mentioned a stipend amount, but no money has come even weeks after the internship ended.
• The company now claims the internship was unpaid, contradicting what you were told when you joined.
• You have asked for your completion certificate several times and HR keeps delaying or going quiet.
• The internship was a graded academic requirement and you need the certificate to clear your semester or degree.
• You found the internship through your college placement cell and are not sure how to involve them.

This guide covers private companies. If your stipend issue is under a government apprenticeship scheme such as NAPS or NATS, that is a different track with its own portal and grievance route. See our companion guide on NAPS and NATS apprenticeship stipend not paid escalation, and the official process to apply for a NAPS national apprenticeship in 2026. If you were a regular salaried employee rather than an intern, your route is stronger and different; see salary not paid by employer and labour complaint evidence.

What you can do this weekend

Friday evening

Open your email and find the offer email or internship letter. Read it line by line. Note exactly what it says about the stipend amount, payment timing, conditions, and any mention of a certificate on completion. Export the email to PDF so you have a fixed copy that cannot be edited later.

Then list out the dispute in one paragraph for yourself: what was promised, what you delivered, what is missing, and what you want now. Being clear in your own head makes every later message sharper.

If any conversation about the stipend or certificate happened over WhatsApp, Slack, or Teams, screenshot it tonight before chats are cleared or you lose access to a company account.

Saturday

Build your proof bundle. Pull together your attendance record, any login or biometric data you can access, and clear evidence of the work you did. That means submitted reports, sent emails, code commits, design files, presentations, or a public link to anything you shipped. The point is to prove you actually did the internship on the agreed terms.

Verify the company's registered address and legal name. You will need these for a formal demand by registered post. For a registered private company or LLP, the registered office is on public record on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs portal. Use the exact legal name, not the brand name.

Draft your polite first reminder to your reporting manager and the HR contact. Keep it factual: the stipend amount or certificate you are owed, the agreed terms, and a reasonable deadline. Attach the offer email. Do not threaten yet; many disputes end with a calm, well-documented reminder.

Sunday

Prepare your formal written demand using the template later in this guide, in case the reminder is ignored. Fill in your details, the stipend figure, and your evidence list so it is ready to send the moment the deadline passes.

If your internship came through your college, draft a short complaint to the placement cell as well. Attach your reminder and evidence. You will hold this in reserve and send it as your second escalation, because the college often has leverage you do not.

Finally, decide your bottom line. Is the stipend large enough to justify a civil recovery suit if it comes to that, or is your real priority simply the certificate? Knowing your goal stops you from overspending on the wrong forum.

Documents and evidence checklist

Step-by-step action plan

Step 1 — Save your offer email and stipend terms

Everything turns on what was promised in writing. Find the offer email or internship letter and read the stipend clause carefully. Note the figure, the payment timing, and any condition such as a minimum attendance or completing a project. If a certificate was promised on completion, mark that line too. Export the email to a PDF and keep the original in your inbox untouched. If your only record is a verbal promise, your case is weaker, so look hard for any written trace, including the job listing you applied to.

Step 2 — Assemble attendance and work proof

You need to show two things: that you completed the internship, and that you delivered work. For attendance, use the company system if you can still log in, or reconstruct it from calendar invites, daily stand-up notes, or a dated diary. For deliverables, collect the actual outputs: emails you sent, reports you submitted, commits you pushed, designs you uploaded, or decks you presented. Save any chat where a manager praised or accepted your work. This bundle is what makes a demand credible.

Step 3 — Send a polite first reminder

Email your reporting manager and the HR or internship coordinator together. State plainly what you are owed, quote the agreed terms, and attach your offer email. Set a reasonable deadline, for example one week. Stay courteous; assume an oversight rather than bad faith. A large share of stipend and certificate delays are simply forgotten paperwork that a clear, dated reminder fixes within days.

Step 4 — Send a formal written demand

If the reminder is ignored, escalate to a formal demand. Send it by email and by registered post (or speed post with acknowledgement) to the company's registered office, using the legal name. Quote the offer terms, list your evidence as annexures, set a final deadline of around 15 days, and state that you will escalate further if it is not met. A demand sent to the registered address by post carries far more weight than another casual email, and the postal receipt is itself useful evidence.

Step 5 — Escalate through your college placement cell

If the internship came through your college, this is often your most powerful lever. File a written complaint with the placement officer or training-and-placement cell, attaching your demand and evidence. Colleges usually have an ongoing relationship with the recruiter and care about protecting it for future batches, so a single call from the placement officer can move a company that ignored you. If the internship was a graded requirement, the college has an even stronger reason to press the company for your certificate.

Step 6 — Understand the consumer-versus-labour nuance

Here is the part many students get wrong. An intern is frequently not treated as a workman or employee under labour law, and a stipend is not always treated as wages. That means a labour office may decline a pure intern stipend claim, especially if you did short-term, training-type work rather than regular employee duties. The facts matter, and the position can vary by state and by how the work was actually structured, so do not assume the labour route is closed or open without checking your specifics. A consumer forum generally fits only where you paid the company for a programme or service that was not delivered, not where the company simply owes you money. For most unpaid-stipend disputes, the cleanest framing is a contractual money claim.

Step 7 — Choose the right legal route for the money

For recovering a promised stipend, a civil suit for recovery of money is the standard route, and some states run small-causes courts for low-value claims that are quicker and cheaper. Weigh the amount against the time and cost; a few thousand rupees may not justify litigation, while a substantial stipend might. If you genuinely did employee-type work and your facts support it, you can also explore the labour route described in salary not paid by employer and labour complaint evidence. If you paid for an internship programme that was never delivered, the consumer route in how to file a consumer court complaint in India may apply. Take brief legal advice before filing if the amount justifies it.

Step 8 — Press separately for the certificate

The certificate is a different claim from the money. It is not a statutory entitlement in the way salary is, but withholding it without a real reason is unfair, and most companies issue it on a firm written request. Keep your certificate demand simple and separate so the company cannot hold it hostage to the stipend dispute. If you completed the internship as agreed, ask in writing, follow up through HR, and bring in the placement cell. For academic internships, your college can often insist on the certificate directly.

Escalation ladder

Copy-paste demand template

Replace the text in square brackets with your own details before sending. Send by email and by registered post to the company's registered office.

When RTI can help

The Right to Information Act, 2005 applies only to public authorities. It becomes useful in an internship dispute in one specific situation: your host was a government body. That includes a central or state government department, a public sector undertaking (PSU), a government bank, or a public university or government college. If you interned with one of these, you can file an RTI with its Public Information Officer to obtain your own internship records.

• Get your attendance and evaluation records: Ask for certified copies of your attendance, your assigned work, and any internal evaluation of your internship, so you can prove you completed it as required.
• Trace a stipend sanction: Where a public body promised a stipend, ask for the sanction order, the file noting on stipend release for your internship batch, and the status of any payment. This reveals whether the money was sanctioned and where it is stuck.
• Find the responsible official: Ask for the name and designation of the officer responsible for issuing internship certificates and releasing stipends, so your follow-up reaches the right desk.

To file one, see our step-by-step guide to filing an RTI online. The CPIO must respond within 30 days. If you get no reply or an unsatisfactory one, use the first appeal process under RTI Section 19. For combined administrative pressure on a government host, CPGRAMS and RTI together can help, and The RTI Playbook covers using RTI strategically in stuck-payment disputes.

When RTI will not help

For most interns, the honest answer is that RTI does not apply, because the host is a private company.

• RTI does not reach private companies: You cannot file an RTI against a private firm for its stipend or certificate records. A private company is not a public authority under the Act, however large or well-known it is. Your routes are the written demand, the placement cell, and the civil or small-claims process.
• RTI cannot order payment: Even against a public authority, RTI only gets you information. It will not, by itself, force the stipend to be paid or the certificate to be issued. It supports your demand and any escalation; it does not replace them.
• It will not speed up a private dispute: Against a private company, an RTI is simply not a valid tool, so do not waste the 30-day window expecting it to work. Send the written demand and involve your college instead.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Relying on verbal promises: If the stipend was only ever discussed by phone, you have little to enforce. Always get the stipend figure and the certificate promise in writing, ideally in the offer email, before you join.
• Filing an RTI against a private company: This is the single most common mistake students make. RTI does not apply to private firms. Use the written demand and your placement cell instead.
• Assuming the labour office will recover your stipend: An intern is frequently not treated as a workman, and a stipend is not always wages, so a labour complaint may be declined. Check your specific facts and state before counting on it.
• Mixing up the money claim and the certificate: Keep them as two separate, clearly worded requests. If you bundle them, a company can stall both by disputing one.
• Sending demands only to a personal email: A formal demand should go to the company's registered office by registered post, addressed to the legal name. A casual email to a manager who has left is easy to ignore.
• Going straight to court for a tiny amount: For a small stipend, the cost and time of litigation can exceed the claim. A strong written demand plus placement-cell pressure resolves most cases without a court at all.
• Deleting your work proof: Once an internship ends, access to company email, repositories, and drives is often cut. Export your deliverables and chats before your last day, or as soon as the dispute starts.
• Burning the bridge too early: Stay professional in writing. A measured tone keeps the placement cell and future references on your side, and a calm escalation is more persuasive than an angry one.

If your wider issue is an employer withholding money or documents after you actually worked as an employee, the evidence discipline in salary not paid by employer and labour complaint evidence applies directly. For broader citizen-action guides, browse the Employment and Salary Disputes category.