In a ruling on May 23, 2025, the Supreme Court of India stated that maternity leave is a constitutional guarantee to female employees.
The ruling overturned the decision of the Madras High Court for a case in which a female employee from Tamil Nadu was denied maternity leave for her third child. The government school teacher has two children from her previous marriage and her leave for her third child was denied by the High Court, a decision that she appealed in the Supreme Court.
According to Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan, the right to maternity leave has become more and more critical with women now constituting a considerable portion of India’s workforce. They added that the leave was in accordance to the Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, that cites “Protection of life and personal liberty” as a fundamental right.
“By judicial interpretation, it has been held that life under Article 21 means life in its fullest sense; all that which makes life more meaningful, worth living like a human being. Right to life includes all the finer graces of human civilisation, thus rendering this fundamental right a repository of various human rights. Right to life also includes the right to health. Right to live with human dignity and the right to privacy are now acknowledged facets of Article 21,” the Justices elaborated.
“Maternity leave is integral to maternity benefits. Reproductive rights are now recognised as part of several intersecting domains of international human rights law, viz. the right to health, right to privacy, right to equality and non-discrimination and the right to dignity,” the ruling further stated.
In the ruling, the Supreme Court highlighted that the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017, does not bar female employees from availing maternity leave after two children. As per the Act, women can avail 26 weeks of maternity leave for their first two children and for 12 weeks for their third pregnancy and beyond.
“Thus, there is no ceiling or cap on the number of children to claim maternity benefit. Only thing is that in case of a woman employee having two or more than two surviving children seeking maternity leave, period of the benefit is reduced: from a maximum period of 26 weeks to a maximum of 12 weeks,” the Supreme Court emphasised.