Daijiworld Media Network - Chennai (SP)

Chennai, Mar 4: Madras high court has delivered a verdict as per which employed women who deliver twins first time are ineligible for maternity leave during the second childbirth. It said that the child born out of the second pregnancy in such cases is treated as the third child.

As per central government rules, maternity leave is applicable for the first two pregnancies of an employed woman. The high court has pointed out that twins are not born simultaneously but they follow one another. Therefore, the count of childbirth has to be taken into account based on the timing of birth of individual child, it clarified. A division bench of the high court said that delivery of children cannot be analyzed as per mathematical calculations. 

A woman who has less than two children alone is eligible for second maternity leave, the high court observed. A division bench of the high court presided over by Chief Justice A P Sahi, which considered a petition filed by a woman employee of Central Industrial Security Force, found that the single judge bench of the high court was not right in sanctioning 180 days leave and other facilities to the woman in question. The union home ministry had filed an appeal questioning this verdict, duly pointing out that the single judge bench had sanctioned leave and other facilities based on Tamil Nadu government employees service rules but as the petitioner is a central government employee, it said, state government rules cannot be made applicable to her.

Veteran advocate Prameela Nesargi, has expressed the opinion that this judgement is not right. She insisted that the first delivery would be counted as one irrespective of how many babies are born out of that pregnancy. She said that number of deliveries should be counted, and not number of children born out of each such deliveries.