May 24, 2025 08:36 AM IST
Setting aside a Madras high court judgment declining maternity leave to a Tamil Nadu government school teacher , the top court ruled that a woman is entitled to maternity benefits for her third biological child
New Delhi Maternity leave is integral to maternity benefits and reproductive rights are now recognised as part of international human rights law like right to health, privacy, equality and non-discrimination and dignity, the Supreme Court said on Friday.
Setting aside a Madras high court judgment declining maternity leave to a Tamil Nadu government school teacher , the top court ruled that a woman is entitled to maternity benefits for her third biological child, observing that the laudable object of population control of the state that restricts maternity leave for up to two children should be read harmoniously with the beneficial law under the Maternity Benefits Act.
“Maternity leave is integral to maternity benefits. Reproductive rights are now recognized as part of several intersecting domains of international human rights law viz. the right to health, right to privacy, right to equality and non-discrimination and the right to dignity,” a bench comprising Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan said.
Writing the judgment for the bench, justice Bhuyan noted the peculiar facts of the case where the petitioner got married to her first husband in 2006 and from the wedlock had two children. After the birth of the second child she joined service at a government school in December 2012. However, the marriage got dissolved in 2017 and both the children were in the custody of her former husband. In September 2018 she re-married and from the marriage, conceived a child and applied for maternity leave
The government on August 28, 2021 rejected her request citing Fundamental Rule 101(a) applicable to state government employees of Tamil Nadu, which provides that maternity leave is available to women state government employees having less than two surviving children. It did not provide for grant of maternity leave for the third child on account of her re-marriage.
The bench said, “It is true that appellant has two biological children out of her first wedlock. But that was before entry into her service. Post entry into service and from her subsisting marriage, this is her first child.”
Addressing the state’s objection, the court held, “Policy of the state to arrest population growth by resorting to various population control measures is certainly a laudable objective. So is the objective of granting maternity benefit to women employees.”
