SC seeks Centre's reply on plea denying maternity leave for adopting child above 3 months

The law states that only a woman who legally adopts a child below the age of three months will be entitled to maternity benefit

The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Union government on a plea challenging "discriminatory and arbitrary" provision of the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 allowing maternity leave to a woman who adopted a child just below the age of three months.

A bench of Justices S A Nazeer and Krishna Murari sought a response from the Ministry of Law and Justice, Ministry of Women and Child Development on the petition by Karnataka resident Hamsaanandini Nanduri challenging the constitutional validity of Section 5(4) of the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961.

The law states that a woman who legally adopts a child below the age of three months or a commissioning mother shall be entitled to maternity benefit for a period of twelve weeks from the date the child is handed over to the adopting mother or the commissioning mother.

The plea claimed, "Section 5(4) apart from being discriminatory and arbitrary towards the adoptive mothers, also arbitrarily discriminates against orphaned, abandoned or surrendered children above the age of three months, which is completely incompatible to the object of the Maternity Benefit Act as well as the Juvenile Justice Act."

It also contended that the purported 12 weeks of maternity benefit to adoptive mothers was not only a "mere lip service but when juxtaposed with the maternity benefit of 26 weeks provided to biological mothers, fails to stand even the basic scrutiny of Part III (fundamental rights) of the Constitution which is wedded to the concept of non-arbitrariness."

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