Apex Court Declares 2 Year Childcare Leave With 180 Days Maternity Leave

The judgement came after an assistant professor in a government college in Himachal Pradesh appealed before the court.

26 April 2024

By Khushi Maheshwari

In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court on Monday accentuated the importance of giving maternity leave along with childcare leave to women. Denial of either of these is a violation to her constitutional rights. 

The issue of childcare leave came into the limelight after an assistant professor in a government college in Himachal Pradesh — Shalini Dharmani — brought to attention her story through her legal representative Pragati Neekhra. She described her plight of being the mother of a child suffering from a one-of-a-kind genetic disease, for which multiple surgeries are required frequently. She described how she had already run out of her leave quota at work and that the government of Himachal Pradesh had refused to grant her special childcare leave, stating that there is no particular arrangement in the State’s service norms which is similar to Section 43-C of the Central Civil Service (leave rules).

The bench comprising CJI Chandrachud and Justice J B Pardiwala then remarked that a two year childcare leave in addition to 180 days worth of maternity leave is mandated by the constitution and that these provisions cannot be denied. It also expressed discontentment at the absence of this provision in the state of Himachal Pradesh and said that in the workforce, the participation of women is not a privilege but a constitutional decree. 

Childcare leaves are a functional provision that serve a significant constitutional imperative to facilitate women being part of the workforce, or else their choices will get restrained to resigning or leaving the workforce in order to tend to their children in crucial phases of their lives. 

As a solution the Supreme Court ordered the HP government to devise a top level committee which is headed by a chief secretary and has secretaries from the women’s and children’s welfare and social welfare departments. It is their responsibility to investigate the matter of childcare leave for female employees in depth.

The committee was given a mandate by the court to work with pertinent Union ministries and produce a report by 31st July that would suggest a suitable course of action for the state’s service laws to include childcare leave for women. Awaiting a ruling, the court acknowledged Dharmani’s dire situation and asked the Himachal Pradesh government to think about allowing her an extraordinary leave of absence to care for her son who suffers from osteogenesis imperfecta, a brittle bone disease.