Woman entitled to maternity leave even if child isn’t biological: SC | India News
New Delhi: Observing that the arrival of a child in a family – by birth, adoption or surrogacy – involves time, attention and nurturing responsibilities to ensure their well-being, the Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that maternity leave is the right of all women, irrespective of whether they gave birth biologically or adopted a child through surrogacy. Repeals a provision stating that maternity leave cannot be granted for adoption of a child older than three months.A bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan held that maternity benefits not only relate to the biological process of childbirth but also take into account a holistic understanding of the attainment of motherhood and thereby role fulfilment. It held that the purpose of maternity protection did not vary with the manner in which the child was brought into the life of the beneficiary mother and that parentage was not limited to the biological act of giving birth.Finding a loophole in Section 60(4) of the Social Security Code, which states that only women who adopt children under three months of age are entitled to maternity benefits for 12 weeks, the court said that the approach taken by the legislature in implementing the objectionable provision did not reflect real-world requirements.It said that women who adopt a baby three months old or older are treated in the same way as women who adopt a baby less than three months old and that the current provision was discriminatory.
