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The Directorate of Municipal Administration had recently issued a notice which terminated the services of a contractual employee after rejecting her application seeking maternity leave. The notice got quashed by the Karnataka High Court.
The petitioner, B.S. Rajeshwari was appointed at the post of Project Information Officer on a contractual basis in November of 2009. The contract got renewed annually and the latest renewal was done on April 1st, 2019. On June 11th of the same year, Rajeshwari had submitted an application to the higher authorities seeking maternity leave. In response to the application, which was rejected by the directorate, a notice was issued to the petitioner 2 weeks after she had submitted her application directing her to continue reporting to the duty. When she did not report to her duty, another notice was issued against her which terminated her from the service and ended the contract, citing her absence as the reason.
Rajeshwari challenged the order in the court. Her lawyer, Subramani M.A. submitted that the maternity laws are extremely clear and therefore the second respondent could not have passed the order to terminate the petitioner or cancel the contract. The respondent's representative M.C.Nagashree (Additional Government Advocate) argued that the petitioner was a contractual employee, hence the Directorate of Municipal Administration had the right to end the contract and terminate her services at any point of time during the course of her employment.
The single bench of Justice M. Nagaprasanna held that even contractual employees are entitled to a maternity leave of 26 weeks (6 months and 15 days) as stated under the Maternity Benefit Act which was amended in 2017.
The court ordered that apart from paying back wages to the female employee, the first respondent of the case (State of Karnataka) would have to pay an additional sum of INR 25,000 to the woman. The second respondent (Directorate of Municipal Administration) was penalized with exemplary costs.
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