HC directs authorities to grant eligible maternity leave to staff nurse

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has directed the authorities to grant eligible maternity leave to a staff nurse of Government Rajaji Hospital in Madurai who had sought maternity leave.

The court was hearing a petition filed by the staff nurse. She was initially appointed as a staff nurse on contract basis in 2008. Later, her services were regularised as a permanent staff nurse in 2018 with effect from 2014.

While she was working on a contract basis, out of wedlock through first marriage, she gave birth to two female children in 2009 and 2012 respectively. For both deliveries, she had not claimed the benefit of maternity leave in view of the fact that she was a contract staff.

Following a matrimonial dispute, she divorced her husband and remarried. Out of wedlock through a second marriage, she conceived and applied for maternity leave. The application was rejected on the grounds that she was not entitled to seek maternity leave for the third child. She challenged the order rejecting the maternity leave.

Justice R. Vijayakumar observed that in the present case, the right of a woman employee to have a child through her second wedlock cannot be curtailed invoking the Maternity Leave Rules. The rule had to be interpreted in such a manner that a woman government employee would be entitled to seek maternity leave only twice during her service period and it cannot be interpreted in such a manner that the State would be entitled to deny maternity leave, even if it is claimed for the first time, citing third pregnancy, the court observed.

The order rejecting the request of the petitioner for maternity leave for her third child is not legally sustainable and is liable to be set aside. When the date of delivery of the petitioner was fixed as September 30, 2024, the medical board had strangely found her fit to resume duty on September 25, 2024 and refused to issue a maternity certificate on the ground that the petitioner conceived for the third time, the court observed.

The court is of the considered opinion that the petitioner, having not availed maternity leave for her first two children, would be entitled to seek the maternity leave for the third child, the court observed.