MUMBAI: Bombay high court on Friday quashed and set aside two communications by Airports Authority of India (AAI) refusing an employee maternity leave for the third child almost 12 years ago because she already had two children. It directed AAI to grant her maternity benefits in respect of her Sept 2012 delivery within 8 weeks.
“Women who constitute almost half of the segment of our society have to be honored and treated with dignity at places where they work
To become a mother is the most natural phenomenon in the life of a woman. Whatever is needed to facilitate the birth of child to a woman who is in service, the employer has to be considerate and sympathetic towards her and must realize 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 up the child after birth,” said Justices A S Chandurkar and Jitendra Jain.
The employee had a child in July 1997 from a previous marriage. After her husband’s demise, AAI in Feb 2004 appointed her on compassionate grounds. In Jul 2008, she remarried and gave birth to two children – one in Jun 2009, the other in Sept 2012. After delivery in Sept 2012, she applied for maternity leave.
AAI (Western Region HQ) rejected her applications in Jan/Mar 2024 citing ineligibility as per AAI Leave Regulations. AAI Workers Union and the employee moved high court in 2015.
The judges said the regulations allow a woman employee to avail 180 days maternity leave twice in her service period. “The condition of two surviving children is subjected so that the maximum time a female employee can benefit is only twice. This is to ensure that the organization is not without the services of the employees for more than two times,” Justice Jain wrote for the bench.
The judges noted that after remarriage, the employee gave birth to two children – in Jun 2009 and Sept 2012. She did not take maternity leave while giving birth in Jun 2009. She applied for the first time after giving birth to the second child in Sept 2012.
“Therefore…since the petitioner has given birth to two children during the service period and having not taken the benefit of maternity leave at the time of giving birth to the first child after joining respondent (AAI), she would be entitled to the maternity leave benefit when she applied on Sept 3, 2012, …since said leave was sought to be availed only once after joining service,” the judges added.
The judges concluded that AAI was “not justified in denying maternity leave to the petitioner” only on the ground that if the child born from her first marriage, before joining AAI, is considered, then she is not entitled for the benefit on account of breaching. the condition of having more than two surviving children.
