Child born to employee before joining deptt doesn’t disentitle her to maternity leave: CAT

Srinagar, July 17: The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) in Srinagar has ruled that a government employee is entitled to maternity leave if her expected child is the third one and her first child was born when she was not in service of the department.

A bench of Judicial Member, M S Latif, allowed the teacher’s plea, who was denied maternity leave by the authorities in the School Education Department (SED) on the ground that a female government employee was eligible for maternity leave only for the first two surviving children.

The counsel representing the teacher argued that when the first child was born to the teacher, she was not in the service of the department and as such she could not be denied maternity leave on the ground that the expected child would be her third one.

The counsel referred to a judgment passed by the High Court of Madras in the case of Khadija Umama versus the District Education Officer wherein, in similar circumstances, a teacher had given birth to two children before she had joined the department.

When she was expecting her third child, for the first time she had requested the concerned department to grant her maternity leave for a year.

As her third child was born subsequently, her maternity leave was not sanctioned by the authorities.

The teacher had submitted that she was entitled to get maternity leave even if she was having three children in view of the fact that only after the birth of the two children, she had joined public service.

She had already given the representation to the authorities that was not considered favourably and that necessitated her to file the writ petition before the High Court of Madras.

The High Court of Madras while deciding the petition directed the authorities to pass final orders on merits and in accordance with the law on the teacher’s representation seeking maternity leave for the first time.

The petitioner through her counsel in the instant case submitted that her case was identical.

She said that it was the cherished desire of every female to be a mother and the authorities cannot deny this benefit of granting maternity leave to her on this count that she was seeking leave for a third child.

Disposing of the teacher's plea, the tribunal ordered that the teacher’s petition be treated as a representation by the authorities who, it said, will pass speaking orders in tune with the law laid down by the High Court of Madras in Khadija Umama versus the District Education Officer.

“It is expected that the respondents will consider and pass speaking orders within 3 weeks from the date a copy of the instant OA along with this judgment is served upon the respondents (authorities),” the tribunal said.