The Supreme Court on Friday declined to entertain a plea seeking legally mandated menstrual leave for working women, saying it would prompt employers to avoid hiring women.

The bench said certain observations that the apex court had made on similar petitions filed by the same petitioner in 2023 and 2024 still held good, and it was not inclined to pass fresh directives. It was for the authorities now to involve all the stakeholders and examine the plea, the bench added.

“The moment you introduce it as a compulsory condition in law, you don’t know the damage it will do to the career of women,” Chief Justice Surya Kant told senior advocate M.R. Shamshad, representing public-interest petitioner Shailendra Mani Tripathi.

“Nobody will give them responsibilities. Even in judiciary services, a normal trial will not be assigned to them.”

The bench, which included Justice Joymalya Bagchi, highlighted that the petitioner was male, and that not a single woman had approached the court with a similar plea.

Tripathi’s petition had sought a direction to the Centre, states and Union Territories to evolve a national leave policy for menstruating women.

“These pleas are made to create fear, to call women inferior, that menstruating is something bad happening to them…. Affirmative action in respect of women is constitutionally recognised, but look at the practical reality in the job market. The more unattractive the human resources, the less is the possibility of their competition in the market,” the bench observed.

“Look at it from the business model. Will an employer be happy with the competing claims of the other gender? The moment you bring in a law mandating menstruation leave, nobody will hire them.”

Shamshad underlined that states such as Karnataka, Odisha and Bihar had some sort of leave policy for menstruating women, and argued that a nationwide policy needed to be formulated.

He said the petitioner had been forced to approach the apex court as representations made to the authorities had not evoked any response.

“The petitioner has already brought to the notice of the authorities the issues sought to be raised in this writ petition,” the court order said.

“It seems to us that the petitioner has fulfilled his endeavours required at his end to promote the welfare of young working women. There is no need for the petitioner to approach the court repeatedly and seek a positive mandamus.”