Employee’s Service Cannot Be Terminated During Maternity Leave: Punjab & Haryana HC

The Punjab & Haryana High Court has ruled that the service of an employee on maternity leave cannot be terminated during the period of leave.

The Single Bench of Justice Harsimran Singh Sethi held that maternity leave cannot be curtailed to terminate an employee’s service, and termination can only take effect after the employee returns from leave.

"...once an employee was on maternity leave, the said period of maternity leave could not have been curtailed so as to terminate the service of an employee and the services of the employee could have been dispensed with upon her joining after availing the benefit of maternity leave," the Bench held.

The Court was hearing a batch of petitions seeking regularization of services. It clarified that temporary employees cannot be replaced by another set of temporary employees under the same terms and conditions. However, they may be replaced by regular employees.

Court's Order

During the proceedings, the Court took note of a case where an employee, Balvir Kaur, was on maternity leave but had her leave curtailed to terminate her service. The Bench also found no valid justification for this action from the respondents.

Consequently, the Court directed that Balvir Kaur be paid her full salary for the sanctioned maternity leave period. It further held that her termination would only take effect after she completed her maternity leave.

“The respondents are hereby directed to pay salary to petitioner Balvir Kaur for the maternity period for which such leave was already sanctioned by the competent authority, which was wrongly curtailed to terminate her services,” the Court ordered.

The High Court directed that the arrears of salary be released within eight weeks while disposing of the plea. "No valid justification has come from the respondents so as to curtail the period of maternity leave in order to terminate the services of petitioner-Balvir Kaur, hence, the petitioner-Balvir Kaur will be entitled to the salary for the period she was granted maternity leave and the order of termination of her services will be effective from the date she completed the said period. The respondents are hereby directed to pay salary to petitioner-Balvir Kaur for the maternity period for which, such leave was already sanctioned by the competent authority, which was wrongly curtailed to terminate the services of petitioner-Balvir Kaur. Let the arrears of salary to Balvir Kaur be released within a period of 08 weeks from the date of receipt of the copy of this order," the Court ordered.

Cause Title: Ravisan and others v. State of Punjab and others & Connected matters [Neutral Citation No. 2025:PHHC:009413]

Appearance:-

Petitioner: Advocates V.K. Shukla, Ashish Gupta, Anshul Pareek, Preeti Grover, Pawan Kumar, Advocate for Mr. Saurabh Arora, Jashandeep Kaur, Advocate for Mr. Akhilesh Vyas, Advocate, M.S. Sachdev, Harbans Lal Sharma

Respondent: Deputy Advocate General (DAG) Akshita Chauhan, Advocate Anurag Goyal

Click here to read/download the Order