AFT stays release of IAF officer saying women can't be discharged from service during maternity leave

Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 23

Observing that women employees cannot be discharged from service while they are on maternity leave, the Armed Forces Tribunal has stayed the invalidation of a woman Air Force officer on medical grounds and directed that she would not be released from service till her duly sanctioned maternity leave is over.

A short service commissioned officer from the flying branch holding the rank of squadron leader had averred that she was being forcibly discharged from service prematurely on medical grounds with effect from December 23, 2021 even though she was already on duly sanctioned maternity leave until March 11, 2022.

She was commissioned in December 2010 and as such her term of engagement for 10+4 years of service was to expire on March 17, 2024. In January 2021, she was placed in low medical category, which made her permanently unfit for flying and she was assigned only ground duties since then.

“Thereafter, instead of transferring her to the ground duty branch as per the existing provisions, she was subjected to an Invalidating Medical Board (IMB) in order to release her from service on medical grounds.

Meanwhile, the competent authority granted her six months’ maternity leave as she delivered a premature baby in November this year,” her counsel Col Indra Sen Singh (retd) said.

The officer had primarily contended that once the officer was sanctioned maternity leave till Narch 2022, it was illegal for the Air Force to prematurely release her on medical grounds in December 2021.

“In accordance with leave rules, Air Force women officers are entitled six months’ maternity leave as a matter of right pre/post delivery of child, which has also been upheld by the Supreme Court,” Col Singh said.

“Moreover, Section 12 of the Maternity Benefit Act prohibits an employer from discharging or terminating the services of a woman employee during the time she is on leave,” he added.

Finding “some force” in the contentions,, the Tribunal’s bench comprising Justice Rajendra Menon and Lt Gen PM Hariz directed, “As a special case and without setting any precedent in the matter, we direct that the applicant shall be permitted to be on the roll till March 11, 2022 and shall be released only after the maternity leave is over.”