Childcare leave for women is a constitutional mandate: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Monday said that two-year childcare leave, apart from mandatory maternity leave of 180 days, for a woman employee is a constitutional mandate and denial of such leave is akin to asking her to quit her job.

This strong remark came from a bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice J B Pardiwala when petitioner Shalini Dharmani, an assistant professor in a govt college in Himachal Pradesh, complained that she has a child with rare genetic disorder that requires multiple surgeries and constant care.

Dharmani, through her counsel Pragati Neekhra, told the court that she has exhausted her leaves and that the HP govt had refused to grant her childcare leave as the state service rules do not have a provision akin to Section 43-C of the Central Civil Service (Leave) Rules, which in 2010 was modified to allow women employees to take childcare leave of 730 days till their disabled children attain 22 years of age, and women with normal children can avail till the kids reach 18 years of age.

Taking exception to the absence of such a rule in Himachal, the CJI-led bench said, "Participation of women in the work force is not a privilege but a constitutional mandate. Childcare leave subserves an important constitutional objective to make women be part of the work force. Otherwise, mothers will be left with no option but to quit their jobs to look after their children in critical phases of their lives."

The bench directed the Himachal Pradesh govt to forthwith constitute a high-level committee chaired by the chief secretary and comprising secretaries of social welfare and women and child welfare departments to reconsider the entire issue of child care leave to women employees.

It asked the committee to engage with Union ministries concerned and file a report, recommending appropriate policy decision on inserting child care leave for women in the state service rules, before the court by July 31. In the meantime, the court asked the HP govt to consider granting her extraordinary leave to attend to her son, who suffers from a rare genetic disorder, osteogenesis imperfecta (brittle bone disease).