Third Time's Not the Charm: Madras HC Caps Maternity Leave at 12 Weeks for Third Child

The Madras High Court has held that a woman government employee is entitled to only 12 weeks' maternity leave for a third child. A bench of Justices S. M. Subramaniam and R. Sakthivel, hearing S. Divya v. Registrar General (2026 LiveLaw (Mad) 296), upheld a Tamil Nadu government order amending Fundamental Rule 101(A). This aligns state rules with the central Maternity Benefit Act's cap for third pregnancies, even as courts continue affirming that maternity benefits themselves cannot be denied.

Read full article

Third Time's Not the Charm: Madras HC Caps Maternity Leave at 12 Weeks for Third Child

The Madras High Court has ruled that a woman government employee is entitled to only twelve weeks of maternity leave for the birth of her third child, upholding a recent Tamil Nadu government order that amended the state's maternity leave rules for such cases.

A division bench of Justice S. M. Subramaniam and Justice R. Sakthivel was hearing the matter in S. Divya v. The Registrar General and Another (W.P. No. 40841 of 2025), reported as 2026 LiveLaw (Mad) 296. The bench examined a Government Order that amended Fundamental Rule 101(A) of the Tamil Nadu Fundamental Rules, which governs maternity leave entitlements for state government employees.

The ruling comes against the backdrop of a long-running legal debate in Tamil Nadu over maternity benefits for a third pregnancy. Under Section 5(3) of the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017, a woman is entitled to 26 weeks of paid maternity leave for her first and second child, and 12 weeks for a third or subsequent child — a distinction Parliament built into the central law. Tamil Nadu's Fundamental Rules had earlier been silent on, or inconsistently applied to, third-child cases, prompting several employees to approach the courts.

Earlier this year, other benches of the same High Court and the Supreme Court's 2025 decision in K. Umadevi v. Government of Tamil Nadu had held that maternity benefits could not be denied outright for a third pregnancy, treating them as part of a woman's reproductive rights under Article 21 of the Constitution. Those rulings emphasised that the physical and medical needs of pregnancy remain the same regardless of birth order, even as they acknowledged the state's competing interest in population control.

In the present case, the Court's latest word is that while the entitlement itself cannot be denied, its duration can lawfully be restricted to 12 weeks once a state government order specifically amends the Fundamental Rules to say so — bringing the state rule in line with the cap already set for private-sector employees under the central Maternity Benefit Act.

The judgment is expected to guide how district judiciary and state departments across Tamil Nadu handle maternity leave applications for third pregnancies going forward, and may prompt further clarity from the High Court on reconciling this ruling with the broader protections recognised in Umadevi.