HC strikes down govt circular on 60-day maternity leave cap for employees on contract

Pune: The Bombay high court’s Kolhapur bench has quashed a Maharashtra govt circular of Feb 28, 2017, putting a 60-day cap on maternity leave for employees on contract.The bench held that the directives in the circular of the state water supply and sanitation department were prima facie “incongruous and inconsistent” with the provisions of the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961.

“Section 27 of the Act gives an overriding effect over any other Act, Rules, executive instructions on contractive stipulations, which are inconsistent with the statutory entitlements under the extant said Act,” the bench of Justice Milind N Jadhav and Justice Nandesh S Deshpande held on June 24.The bench quashed an order of the executive engineer of Satara Zilla Parishad’s (ZP) rural water supply department on May 10, 2024, approving a 60-day maternity leave to a junior engineer (employed on contract since June 4, 2014) by relying on the govt circular.

It directed Satara ZP’s chief executive officer (CEO) to grant the petitioner a maternity benefit, including leave for a period of 26 weeks, as provided under Section 5 of the Maternity Benefit Act.The state department’s circular of Feb 28, 2017, stated that maternity leave would be granted for 60 days to the employees on contract and the honorarium paid during the leave would be equivalent to the amount being paid prior to the leave.

It further provided that the employee would continue to work for 11 months after the maternity leave period and in case of failure or resignation, the amount paid during the maternity leave would be recovered from such employee.The petitioner had applied to the Satara ZP CEO and the exeuctive engineer for a 26-week maternity leave under the Maternity Benefit Act, but the executive engineer sanctioned leave only for 60 days — from May 6, 2024, to July 4, 2024 — based on the govt circular.

The petitioner delivered a child on June 16, 2024. She moved the high court, which passed an order on July 29, 2024, restraining the respondent authorities from taking any adverse action against her if she did not join duty by availing the benefit under the Maternity Benefit Act.Senior advocate S B Talekar and advocate Vishakha Patil submitted on behalf of the petitioner that denying full maternity benefits to the workers on contract created an illegal dichotomy and violated basic human rights.

They relied on a string of landmark precedents, including the Supreme Court’s ruling in Municipal Corporation of Delhi vs Female Workers (Muster Roll), establishing that daily wage workers and women employees on contract were fully entitled to all protection under the Maternity Benefit Act.The high court bench held, “Prima facie, we are of the opinion that the contents of government circular, which are in the nature of an administrative fiat or ministerial nature, cannot override the statutory provisions of the said (Maternity Benefit) Act in the present case.”