Supreme Court of India strikes down Section 60(4) restricting adoptive mothers' maternity benefits
→Employer HR teams must not deny maternity pay to adoptive mothers due to child's age
Change
Supreme Court of India struck down Section 60(4) of the Social Security Code, 2020, eliminating the requirement that adoptive mothers must have adopted a child under three months to qualify for statutory maternity benefits.
Why it matters
Employers cannot apply a three-month adoption-age criterion to withhold statutory maternity leave or pay from adoptive mothers. Human-resources and payroll procedures that used that statutory age gate are unlawful and must cease being applied in eligibility checks.
Implications
- — Employer HR teams in India must immediately grant statutory maternity leave and pay to adoptive mothers without applying a three‑month adoption‑age filter — continued denial exposes employers to legal challenge and liability.
- — Payroll and benefits administrators in India must immediately remove the three‑month eligibility filter from pay calculations and payroll systems — failure will produce payroll underpayments and employer legal exposure.
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Source
View on Bar & Bench