In a significant ruling on workers’ rights and gender equality, the Orissa High Court has reiterated that women employed on a contractual basis are entitled to maternity leave, rejecting a challenge by the State government. The judgment reaffirms that maternity benefits must not be restricted based on employment status, citing constitutional protections and international obligations.

According to LiveLaw, the Division Bench of Justices Dixit Krishna Shripad and Mruganka Sekhar Sahoo dismissed a writ appeal filed by the State, which sought to overturn a 2022 single-judge ruling that had directed the Department of Health and Family Welfare to grant maternity leave to a contractual worker. The employee’s leave application for the period from 17 August 2016 to 12 February 2017 had been earlier rejected by the department.

The government had contended that, since the employee was not a permanent civil servant but was governed by the terms of her contract, she was not entitled to maternity benefits. However, the Court rejected this argument. As reported by LiveLaw, the judges held that such a distinction between regular and contractual employees violated Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees equality before the law.

“Women employees, for the purpose of availing such benefit, do constitute one homogenous class, and their artificial bifurcation founded on status of appointment falls foul of Article 14,” the Bench ruled.

The Court observed that the Supreme Court of India and various High Courts had consistently upheld the applicability of the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 to contractual employees. Therefore, denying maternity leave on the basis of appointment status was both discriminatory and unconstitutional.

Quoting from the judgment, as reported by The Hindu, the Bench underscored the State’s obligation to ensure maternity leave with pay or comparable social benefits as part of its policy framework, especially given India’s commitment to several international conventions. These include the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

The Bench invoked both legal and social reasoning in its decision, stating:

“These conventions highlight the social significance of ‘maternity’, and the role of both parents in the family structure and in the upbringing of children. It is said that God could not be everywhere and, therefore, he created mothers.”

The judgment noted that the idea of maternity leave is built upon the principle of “zero separation” between mother and child in the early stages of life. Drawing from medical opinion, the Court added that child psychiatrists and obstetricians support uninterrupted physical companionship between a lactating mother and her baby, which aids in emotional bonding and promotes the well-being of both.

“A lactating mother has a fundamental right to breastfeed her baby during its formative years. Similarly, the baby has a fundamental right to be breastfed and brought about in a reasonably good condition,” the Court said, as cited by The Hindu. “These two important rights form an amalgam from which the State’s obligation to provide maternity benefits... would arise.”