Mumbai: The Bombay High Court said that since becoming a mother was a natural phenomenon for a woman, employers have to be considerate and sympathetic to female staffers.
The high court quashed a 2014 decision of Airports Authority of India (AAI) refusing maternity leave to a woman employee on the grounds that she already had two children.
A bench of Justices AS Chandurkar and Jitendra Jain said an employer had to be considerate and sympathetic towards women staffers.
“To become a mother is the most natural phenomenon in the life of a woman. Whatever is needed to facilitate the birth of a child to a woman who is in service, the employer has to be considerate and sympathetic towards her and must realise the physical difficulties which a working woman would face in performing her duties at the workplace while carrying a baby in the womb or while rearing the child after birth,” observed a bench of Justices A S Chandurkar and Jitendra Jain.
AAI Workers’ Union and Kanakavali Shyam Sandal, the concerned employee, had challenged two communications issued by the AAI rejecting the latter’s application for maternity leave benefits after the birth of her third child.
Kanakavali submitted to the court that she had a child in 1997 with her first husband Raja Armugam, who was an employee of AAI. After Armugam’s death, Kanakavali secured a job with AAI on compassionate grounds. She then married again, and delivered a child in 2009, but didn’t apply for maternity benefits.
In 2012, she had another baby, and this time, she applied for benefits. However, her claim was rejected by AAI.
The high court said according to Article 42 of the Constitution of India, the state shall make provision for securing just and human conditions of work and for maternity relief.
“The right to reproduction and child rearing has been recognised as an important facet of a person’s right to privacy, dignity and bodily integrity under Article 21. Article 42 enjoins the state to make provisions for securing just and humane conditions of work and for maternity relief,” the court said.
The bench noted that AAI’s maternity leave rules has provisions for a female employee to get benefits twice in her service period.
“The objective of this regulation is to give maternity leave benefits and not to curb the population. The condition of two surviving children is subjected so that the maximum times a female employee can benefit is only twice. This is to ensure that the organisation is not without the services of the employee for more than two times,” the bench said.
Since the woman had not availed of maternity leave benefit when she had her second child, she was eligible for it when she delivered her third child.
