Mumbai:
Becoming a mother is a natural phenomenon and an employer must be considerate and sympathetic towards female staffers, the Bombay High Court said on Friday, while quashing an Airport Authority of India (AAI) notice denying maternity leave to an employee on Friday. because she already had two children.
A division bench of Justices AS Chandurkar and Jitendra Jain said women who constitute almost half of the segment of our society should be honored and treated with dignity at the places where they work to earn their livelihood.
Whatever be the nature of their duties, vocation and place of work, women should be given all the facilities to which they are entitled, it added.
The court quashed a 2014 notice from the AAI, the western region headquarters, which denied maternity leave to an employee, citing the fact that she already had two children.
“Becoming a mother is the most natural phenomenon in a woman's life. Whatever is necessary to facilitate the birth of a child to an employed woman, the employer must be considerate and sympathetic towards her and must realize the physical consequences. difficulties that a working woman would face in discharging her duties at the workplace while carrying a baby in the womb or while raising the child after birth,” the court said.
The court ruled on petitions filed by the Airports Authority of India Workers Union and Kanakavali Raja Armugam, also known as Kanakavali Shyam Sandal, challenging two notices issued by the Western Region Headquarters AAI in 2014, rejecting Kanakavali's application for a maternity leave benefit was denied as she already had two. children.
The communication stated that the woman was not eligible for maternity leave under the AAI Leave Scheme, 2003.
The woman was first married to Raja Armugam, an AAI employee, and after his death she was given a job on compassionate grounds.
The woman in her plea said that she had one child from her previous marriage, and after the death of her first husband, she remarried, and two children were born from the marriage.
The woman had not taken maternity leave at the birth of her first child from her first marriage and had applied for benefit for the third birth, which the AAI rejected.
The second child was born in 2009 before she was appointed on compassionate grounds.
The AAI said that under the maternity leave regulations, it is clear that Kanakavali already had two surviving children at the time of the third delivery, and therefore she was not eligible for maternity leave.
The court said that Article 42 of the Constitution of India provides that the state shall make provision for securing just and humane conditions of employment and maternity support.
Article 42 talks about “just and humane working conditions” and “maternity support”.
“The right to reproduction and education has been recognized as an important facet of a person's right to privacy, dignity and bodily integrity under Article 21. Article 42 obliges the State to make provision for ensuring just and humane working conditions and maternity support,” said the councilor. the court said.
The bench said that as per the AAI's maternity leave regulations, a woman employee can avail maternity leave twice during her period of service.
“The purpose of this ordinance is to provide maternity leave benefits and not to control the population. The condition of two surviving children is set in such a way that the maximum number of times a female employee can benefit from this is only twice. This is to ensure that the organization does not go without the services of the employee more than twice,” the court said.
The court noted that since the petitioner had not availed the maternity leave benefit when she had her first child, she was eligible for the benefit when she had her third child.
It added that the maternity leave and conditions imposed were drawn up taking into account normal circumstances, where a female employee marries and gives birth only once.
The bank said the regulations should be interpreted broadly.
“The role of the court is to understand the purpose of the law in society and to help the law achieve its purpose. When social reality changes, the law must also change,” the court said.
It said the purpose of the Maternity Leave Regulation is to provide protection to a woman, and its importance should be seen from the point of view of a female worker's health.
The court quashed the AAI notices denying the woman maternity leave benefit and directed the authority to grant her the same within eight weeks.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)