Supreme Court Upholds Maternity Leave as Article 21 Right, Overrules Two-Child Norm Restriction

The Supreme Court while examined the denial of maternity leave to an employee, a teacher in Taacher in Tamil Nadu government service, who was denied the maternity leave for her third child.

Case Background: The appellant, K. Umadevi, an English Teacher in Tamil Nadu government service, had two children from her first marriage, which was dissolved in 2017. She subsequently remarried in 2018 and became pregnant. Upon applying for maternity leave for the child of her second marriage (which was her third biological child overall), her request was rejected by the authorities. The denial was based on Fundamental Rule (FR) 101(a) of the Tamil Nadu Fundamental Rules, which grants maternity leave only to women government servants "with less than two surviving children".

While a Single Judge of the Madras High Court ruled in her favor, interpreting "surviving children" to mean children in the mother’s lawful custody, the Division Bench reversed this decision, holding that the appellant was not entitled to the benefit as claimed. Challenging the Division Bench's ruling, the matter reached the Supreme Court.

The Apex Court was tasked with determining whether the prior existence of two children, whose custody was held by the former husband, could legitimately disentitle the mother from maternity benefits for her first child from her subsisting second marriage.

On the 'Maternity Leaves' the Supreme Court unequivocally declared that the right to have maternity leave is a facet of the reproductive right of a woman, which is directly traceable to Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Life under Article 21, by judicial interpretation, means life in its fullest sense, including the right to health, dignity, and making reproductive choices.

The Apex Court acknowledged the State’s laudable policy objective of promoting small family norms to control population growth. However, it stressed that this objective and the objective of granting maternity benefit are not mutually exclusive and must be harmonized in a rational manner.

The Court further observed that the benefit of maternity leave is categorized as beneficial legislation and must be construed with a purpose-oriented approach to bridge the gap between law and society. By referring to the Central Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, for guidance, the Court noted that central legislation only restricts the period of benefit (26 weeks reduced to 12 weeks) for women with two or more surviving children, but places no cap on the number of children for entitlement to the benefit itself.

The Supreme Court ultimately allowed the appeal, setting aside the Division Bench’s restrictive interpretation and directing the State to grant her maternity leave.

Coram: JUSTICE ABHAY S. OKA AND JUSTICE UJJAL BHUYAN.