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SC issues notice to Centre on plea challenging conditions for maternity leave of adoptive mothers
The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to the Centre on a plea challenging the constitutional validity of Section 5(4) of the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 that states adoptive mothers will be eligible for maternity leave only if they adopt children who are less than three-months-old, reported Bar and Bench.
This condition needs to be met if the mothers want to take 12 weeks of maternity leave.
A bench of Justices S Abdul Nazeer and Krishna Murari said that the petitioner has a “just cause”.
The petition, filed by lawyer Hamsaanandini Nanduri, said that such a distinction will lead to parents preferring to adopt newborn children to older ones.
“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 JJ [Juvenile Justice] Act,” the petition stated, reported Live Law.
The petitioner also argued that the provision of the Maternity Benefit Act was in conflict with the Juvenile Justice Act and the adoption regulations.
It said that the process of adoption under the Juvenile Justice Act states that any child who has been orphaned, abandoned or surrendered should be declared legally free for adoption…