In a landmark ruling with far-reaching implications for working women across India, the Bombay High Court has firmly held that maternity leave is a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution and cannot be treated as a break in service regardless of whether an employee is permanent, temporary, or contractual.
The case involved Dr Meenakshi Muthiah, a dentist serving as an Assistant Professor under the Social Responsibility Service Scheme, who was slapped with a penalty of Rs 23,58,403 for allegedly failing to complete her bond period, a period that included the time she was on maternity leave.
A Division Bench of Justice Anil S. Kilor and Justice Raj D. Wakode set aside the penalty, ruling that no bond can override a woman’s right to maternity leave, which is a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. The verdict arrives on the heels of a series of similar judgements from Indian courts in recent months, signalling a decisive judicial shift in favour of protecting working mothers.
No Bond Can Override Motherhood
The bench observed that maternity leave cannot be used to penalise a woman for exercising her right to motherhood under Article 21 and further held that the petitioner could not be denied this right merely because she was serving under the Social Responsibility Service Scheme rather than holding permanent status, she was entitled to the same protective umbrella as regular employees when it came to maternity-related entitlements.
The Court directed that the petitioner was entitled to salary for the maternity leave period and set aside the penalty imposed for non-completion of the bond period. Counsel for the petitioner had argued that imposing a financial penalty for availing maternity leave was unconstitutional, emphasising that absence from work before and after childbirth is necessary for the well-being of both the mother and child.
The Court held that any contract, agreement, or bond that penalises a woman for taking maternity leave is inconsistent with Section 27 of the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961. The State had contended that the scheme did not specifically provide for maternity leave during the bond period an argument the Court categorically rejected, holding that statutory and constitutional rights cannot be curtailed merely because service rules do not expressly provide for them.
Temporary and Contractual Workers Left Behind
The Bombay High Court’s ruling in Dr Muthiah’s case is not an isolated verdict. In December 2025, the Court’s Kolhapur Bench delivered an equally significant judgement in the case of Dr Vrushali Vasant Yadav, a temporary Assistant Professor at a government medical college, who had been denied maternity benefits solely on the ground that she was granted a technical break of one or two days in service a practice the Court found unjustifiable and untenable.
Separately, a Division Bench of Justices RI Chagla and Advait Sethna granted relief to an anaesthesiologist at KEM Hospital, Mumbai, whose request for 26 weeks of paid maternity leave had been rejected because she was a contractual employee, a stand the Court declared was plainly contrary to Section 27 of the Maternity Benefit Act, which overrides any restrictive terms in an employment agreement.
These cases expose a troubling pattern: institutions including public hospitals have routinely exploited technical employment distinctions to deny women their legal entitlements, forcing them to approach courts for relief that the law already guarantees. The Supreme Court, too, weighed in through its May 2025 ruling in K. Umadevi v. Government of Tamil Nadu, affirming that maternity benefit is a facet of reproductive rights traceable to Article 21 and that it encompasses the right to health, dignity, and equality.
The Logical Indian’s Perspective
These rulings are more than legal victories they are a mirror held up to an uncomfortable truth: that women in India are still being made to pay a professional price for becoming mothers. The fact that a dentist had to fight a penalty of over Rs 23 lakh, that a temporary professor’s leave was tagged as unpaid absence and that a doctor at a public hospital had to resign over the absence of nursing facilities all while courts repeatedly upheld their rights points to a systemic failure that runs deeper than bad policy.
It reflects an institutional culture that treats motherhood as an inconvenience rather than a social good. True gender equality in the workplace cannot be achieved by court orders alone; it demands a genuine cultural shift, one where employers, public or private, internalise the spirit of welfare legislation rather than searching for loopholes to subvert it. India’s working mothers deserve workplaces that support, not punish, them for the most human of acts.
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