Maternity leave: The Kerala High Court has ruled that maternity leave stands apart from ordinary leave and cannot be added to routine leave to penalise or disqualify a woman.
The court said that, unlike most other leaves, which are typically granted at an employer’s or institution’s discretion, maternity leave flows from a woman’s fundamental rights. It must be treated as a protected entitlement.
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The decision came on a petition filed by Dr Susan K. John, a young doctor from Ernakulam who qualified through the NEET Super Speciality Examination 2022 and joined the DrNB Nephrology programme at a hospital in Kochi. During her course, she took 184 days of maternity leave after the birth of her second child, and her total leave for that year rose to 207 days.
Soon after, she was diagnosed with Stage IV high-grade B-cell lymphoma, an aggressive blood cancer, and required extensive chemotherapy and rest. With medical leave added, her total absence reached 402 days. NBEMS informed her that under its 2024 Comprehensive Leave Rules, leave beyond 365 days would lead to automatic cancellation of candidature.
Allowing the plea, the High Court said rigid limits on total leave cannot be applied mechanically in exceptional situations. The court noted that extraordinary circumstances demand a practical approach, especially when the leave includes maternity benefits and serious medical treatment, and held that such cases must be considered on their specific facts rather than through a blanket rule.
The broader global shift, from early labour standards to human-rights frameworks and expanded maternity protections in India’s 2017 law, was cited as context for why maternity leave cannot be treated like ordinary leave.
