Airport Authority of India (AAI), in 2014, had refused maternity leave to a woman employee just because it was her third pregnancy. However, when the said employee, Kanakavali Raja Armugam submitted a petition to the Bombay High Court questioning the rejection of her maternity leave request by AAI, the Court stood by her.
Kanakavali was married to Raja Armugam who used to an employee of AAI till he died. However, the two had one child while Armugam was in service. Kanakavali was given a job at AAI on compassionate grounds post Armugam’s death. She married again later and had two children with her second husband. As an employee of AAI, it was her second request for maternity leave (she wasn’t an employee of AAI when she had the first child with her first husband). Airport Authority of India, however, rejected her leave application because she already had two children.
The Court highlighted the fact that AAI’s maternity leave rules did state that a woman in service could avail of maternity benefits twice during her tenure. Therefore, Kanakavali was right in seeking leave. The Court also pointed out that since motherhood is a natural phenomenon, it was the duty of employers to be considerate and sympathethic towards their female employees who are pregnant; that denying a woman maternity leave just because she already had two children was wrong. Also, the Court wished for employers to be more sensitive towards expecting women in their workforce as they put up with many challenges because of their condition, not just before childbirth but after too.
According to the Court, maternity benefits and the rules governing the same were designed for women who marry only once and become mothers thereafter. However, it was pointed out that the benefits and associated rules were drafted to ensure that the women employees are not lost to the workforce due to motherhood and not to check population growth.
Also, as per the Constitution, the right to reproduce is an important part of an individual’s “right to privacy, dignity and bodily integrity under Article 21”, as reported by LiveLaw.
