Women daily wagers entitled to maternity benefits -- SC

Women daily wagers entitled to maternity benefits -- SC
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

NEW DELHI, MARCH 8: In a decision timed with International Women's Day, the Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that women daily wagers are entitled to maternity benefits.

The decision will benefit lakhs of women in the unorganised sector.

Directing the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to pay maternity benefits to daily wagers, the court said, "A just and social order can be achieved only when irregularities are obliterated and everyone is provided what is legally due.''

"Women, who constitute half of the society, have to behonoured and treated with dignity at places where they work to earn their livelihood," the court added.

Dismissing an appeal against the order of a tribunal, a division bench comprising Justice S Saghir Ahmad and Justice D P Wadhwa said, "To become a mother is the most natural phenomenon in the life of a woman.

"The employer has to be considerate and sympathetic towards her and must realise the physical difficulty a working woman would face in performing her duties at the workplace while carrying a baby in the womb or rearing a child after the birth," Justice Ahmad said.

The court said, "The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, aims to provide all these facilities to a working woman in a dignified manner so that she may overcome the stress of motherhood honourably, peacefully and undeterred by the fear of being victimised for forced actions during the pre-or post-natal period."

The MCD had filed the petition against the High Court judgement which had upheld an Industrial Tribunal order directing the Corporation to extend the maternity benefit to female daily wagers who were in the continued service of the MCD for three or more years.

The Supreme Court directed MCD to approach the State Government for issuance of a notification to this regard under the Act but said in the meantime, the Corporation should extend the benefit to its women daily wage workers.