The Delhi High Court has ruled that maternity cannot be allowed to become a source of ignominy at the workplace, holding that statutory protection available to women during maternity leave extends beyond mere continuity of employment to safeguard their professional status and prospects of career advancement. The observations came as the court directed a private firm to pay Rs 10 lakh in compensation, along with Rs 1.5 lakh in costs, to a woman chartered accountant who alleged she was effectively demoted after returning from maternity leave.

The petitioner, identified as Rakhi Bisht, a chartered accountant with around 14 years of professional experience, had joined the company, identified as software firm HashiCorp, in June 2022 as Manager-Accounting, drawing a monthly salary of approximately Rs 2.6 lakh. After informing the company of her pregnancy in May 2023, she was moved to another team before proceeding on maternity leave in December 2023. Upon her return to work in July 2024, she was informed that her earlier managerial position was no longer available and was instead assigned to the treasury department, a role she contended was substantially inferior to her previous position.

Bisht argued that the treasury duties assigned to her were largely clerical in nature and were ordinarily performed by a staff accountant, a position roughly three levels below her managerial designation. She contended that the reassignment undermined her qualifications, professional experience and standing within the organization. The company, for its part, maintained that the reassignment was necessitated by genuine business needs and did not amount to a demotion, arguing that her salary and designation had remained unchanged following her return.

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Justice Sachin Datta, delivering the judgment on August 31, rejected the company's position, holding that merely keeping an employee's salary and designation unchanged is not sufficient to establish that her conditions of service have been protected. The court clarified that "conditions of service" encompass the nature of an employee's duties, functional status, reporting hierarchy, supervisory responsibilities, and consideration for future appraisal and promotion, all of which the court found had been adversely affected in Bisht's case. The court further held that a woman returning from maternity leave is ordinarily entitled to be restored to the post she held immediately before proceeding on leave, and where that post is genuinely unavailable for bona fide organisational reasons, she must instead be placed in a position as nearly equivalent as possible in terms of pay, grade, status, role, responsibilities, managerial authority and prospects for advancement.

The court also examined internal communications from around the time of Bisht's return, in which colleagues had reportedly been asked whether they had any work that could be assigned to her, an exchange the court appeared to view as indicative of the ad hoc and diminished nature of the role she was ultimately given. Notably, although Bisht had since resigned from the company and joined another multinational firm in a similar accounting managerial capacity, the court found sufficient grounds to award her compensation for the treatment she experienced during her tenure at the firm.

Beyond the specifics of the case, the ruling is understood to touch on a broader regulatory gap, with the court reportedly noting that existing protections under the Maternity Benefit Act do not comprehensively address issues of professional demotion following maternity leave. The judgment is likely to be viewed as a significant precedent for working women navigating similar circumstances, reinforcing that legal protections tied to maternity extend well beyond questions of pay and formal job continuity to cover the substance and standing of the roles women return to after childbirth.

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