Maternity benefits end with expiry of ad-hoc college contract: Bombay High Court
The Bombay High Court has held that maternity benefits cannot be claimed after a contractual appointment has ended and there is no employer-employee relationship, while
The Bombay High Court has held that maternity benefits cannot be claimed after a contractual appointment has ended and there is no employer-employee relationship, while refusing relief to an assistant professor whose suburban Mumbai college had denied her maternity leave and benefits. A division bench of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Aarti Sathe quashed a July 2025 order of the assistant commissioner of labour and appellate authority under the Maternity Benefit Act, which had directed the college to pay Rs 2,43,500 towards maternity benefits and not terminate the woman’s services during the maternity leave period. The court said entitlement to maternity leave has to be examined within the framework of the law and the terms and conditions governing the woman’s employment. Read Full Story The bench said it was conscious that a woman employee’s right to claim maternity leave is meant to safeguard the dignity of motherhood and the health and welfare of both the mother and child.
‘The importance of such benefit cannot be understated,’ it said. At the same time, the court noted that the woman had sought maternity benefit after the expiry of her contractual appointment. ‘We fail to comprehend in what capacity the respondent could claim maternity benefits from the college when she admittedly ceased to be its contract employee,’ the court said. The woman had been appointed on an ad-hoc basis as an assistant professor from June 2023 to April 2024. In March 2024, she applied for maternity leave from June 14, stating that her expected date of delivery was July 18, 2024. The college said she could not claim maternity benefits after the end of her ad-hoc contractual appointment. It also said she was never removed or terminated during her pregnancy, and that her contract had simply come to an end and was not renewed.
According to the college, after her contract ended, the woman asked whether she would be considered for a fresh appointment for the next academic year. The college told her that a decision on this would be taken only in June and that her request for maternity benefits would be considered only if she was appointed afresh for the next academic year. She was not appointed for the next year as she was not in a position to assume duties after delivering a baby in June. In October 2024, she filed a complaint before the authority, alleging that she had been unlawfully terminated and wrongly denied maternity benefits. The high court said maternity benefit arises out of, and during, the subsistence of the employer-employee relationship, but in this case the woman delivered her baby in June after the expiry of her ad-hoc contractual appointment.
The BriefWire