The Supreme Court has reiterated that maternity leave is an integral component of women's reproductive rights and right to life and that no institution can deny a woman employee her right to maternity leave benefits. A bench of the judges, Abhay S. Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan, delivered this heartening judgment while hearing a petition challenging a Madras High Court order that had denied maternity leave to a government school teacher from Tamil Nadu after the birth of her third child on the grounds that the law allows leave for only the first two childbirths. The point of contention in this case appeared to be an attempt to penalise a woman for her reproductive choices. The court's enlightening view was that State policies to control population and women's right to autonomy over their bodies are not mutually exclusive aspects: they need to be harmonised. This sets a transformative precedent and reflects the court's progressive stance on gender justice. India was among the first countries to enact laws on maternity benefits that not only include financial security during a woman employee’s time away from work but also ensure adequate rest and recovery time so that new mothers feel healthy enough to rejoin work and balance their professional obligations with motherhood. The Maternity Benefit Act, formulated in 1961, entitled women employed in the formal sector to 12 weeks of paid leave. This was amended in 2017 with the duration of leave increased to 26 weeks for the first two childbirths.

Despite these benefits and legal security, there are gaps in policy implementation. A 2024 IndiaSpend survey highlighted that maternity benefits elude about 94% of working women. A 2025 study funded by the National Science Foundation of the United States of America found that since the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act was implemented in 2017, Indian women were 22% less likely to receive interview calls, underlining how pregnancy impacts their likelihood of being rehired. Further, the Voice of Women Study 2024 showed that 75% of women experienced a career setback after returning from maternity leave. The situation is much worse in the Indian economy’s informal sector, where women's participation is often high but there is slack enforcement of the rules. There is a case to incentivise employers — the State sharing the burden of the maternity benefit is an option — to ensure women workers do not continue to pay the motherhood penalty.