Right to maternity leave is part of right to life: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court recently held that maternity leave is a facet of a woman’s reproductive rights and right to life under Article 21 and cannot be denied solely because the child was the third child born to the woman and was conceived from her second marriage..A Bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan said that denying maternity leave to a woman employee on the ground that the child is the woman's third, violates her fundamental rights under Article 21 of the Constitution. .The case arose after a Tamil Nadu government school teacher applied for maternity leave in 2021 following the conception of her first child from her second marriage. She had joined government service in 2012 and had two children from her previous marriage, both of whom remained in the custody of her former husband after their divorce in 2017.She later remarried and gave birth to a child from her second marriage.Her application for maternity leave in 2021 was rejected by the district education office, citing Rule 101(a) of the Tamil Nadu Fundamental Rules. This rule allows maternity leave only for women government servants with fewer than two surviving children. According to the authorities, Umadevi was not eligible as the present child was her third..After this rejection, she approached the Madras High Court. A single-judge ruled in her favour, holding that the cap on two children could not be strictly applied in her case, as the earlier children were not in her custody and had been born before her entry into service. The State government challenged that decision in appeal. A Division Bench of the High Court overturned the ruling and held that the rule must be applied uniformly. It also stated that the right to maternity leave was not a fundamental right.“Grant of maternity leave is not a fundamental right. It is either a statutory right or a right which flows from the conditions of service,” the Division Bench held.Aggrieved by this view, the woman approached the Supreme Court. .The top Court disagreed with the High Court’s reasoning. It observed that the fundamental right to life under Article 21 includes reproductive autonomy and that policies meant to enforce population control must be harmonised with dignity and welfare of working women.“The right of every woman to make reproductive choices without undue interference from the State is central to the idea of human dignity. Deprivation of access to reproductive healthcare or emotional and physical well-being also injures the dignity of women,” the bench noted from its previous decisions. It also took note of the fact that the woman's previous children were born before she joined government service and that the present pregnancy was from her lawful second marriage.“The fact that the appellant’s spouse had two biological children from his first marriage would not impinge upon the entitlement of the appellant to avail maternity leave for her sole biological child,” the bench noted referring to its earlier decision Deepika Singh Vs. Central Administrative Tribunal. .Rejecting the State’s argument that granting relief would undermine its population control policies, the Court said both objectives—population control and reproductive dignity—must be balanced.It traced India’s obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, CEDAW and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and held that the State must balance its population control policy with the constitutional promise of dignity and autonomy.“The object of having two child norm… and the object of providing maternity benefit… are not mutually exclusive. The two must be harmonized in a purposive and rational manner to achieve the social objective,” the Court opined..The Court concluded that the two-child rule could not be applied in a mechanical way to deny maternity leave in circumstances like in the present case. It allowed the woman's appeal, set aside the High Court’s Division Bench order and directed that maternity leave be granted to her under FR 101(a), with all benefits released within two months..The woman was represented by advocates KV Muthu Kumar and Sarita Kanwar. The State and other respondents were represented by Senior Advocate Joseph Aristotle S and advocate Sabarish Subramanian..[Read Judgment]