Maternity Leave and the “Two-Child Norm”: Telangana High Court Clarifies Position Where First Delivery Results in Twins

Authored by Gopika

Introduction

Service rules governing maternity leave in most States, including Telangana, condition eligibility on the employee having “less than two surviving children.” Read literally, this formulation produces an anomalous outcome where a woman’s first pregnancy results in twins: she is deemed to have exhausted her eligibility in a single confinement, even though she has undergone only one pregnancy and one delivery. In Jadi Swarupa Rani v. State of Telangana (W.P. No. 7640 of 2026, judgment dated 15 July 2026), the Telangana High Court addressed this precise question and held that the birth of twins in a first delivery does not, by itself, disentitle an employee from maternity leave for a subsequent, distinct pregnancy. This update summarises the facts, the applicable statutory framework, the Court’s reasoning, and its practical implications for employers and employees alike.

Brief Facts

The petitioner was appointed as a Junior Lecturer (English) with the Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TGSWREIS) in September 2019. Her first pregnancy, in November 2023, resulted in the birth of twins, for which she was granted 180 days of maternity leave in the ordinary course. On becoming pregnant a second time, she applied for maternity leave; the application was rejected by the institution on the ground that she already had two surviving children and was therefore outside the scope of the applicable rules. Her subsequent representation dated 19 February 2026 elicited a response from the Principal disclaiming authority to sanction leave beyond 30 days and identifying the Secretary as the competent authority – a reference that was not, in substance, acted upon. By the time the matter came to be heard, the petitioner had already delivered her third child. She sought a direction that her first pregnancy, notwithstanding the birth of twins, be treated as a single delivery for purposes of eligibility, and that maternity leave with full pay be sanctioned for her second delivery.

The Applicable Legal Framework

Rule 101 (a) of the Telangana Fundamental Rules, which empowers the Government to regulate maternity leave, initially restricted maternity leave to women with fewer than two surviving children. The leave was subsequently enhanced from 120 to 180 days by G.O. in the year 2010 and extended to Social Welfare institutions, which formed the basis for rejecting the petitioner’s application. The Court noted that Rule 101(a) is substantially similar to Rule 43 of the CCS (Leave) Rules, 1972, which likewise restricts maternity leave to employees having “less than two surviving children”. This similarity enabled the Court to rely on Supreme Court and Delhi High Court decisions interpreting the corresponding central provision.

Code on Social Security, 2020. The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, which the judgment refers to and which governed the central-law position at the time much of the underlying case law developed, stands repealed and subsumed into the Code on Social Security, 2020 (“SS Code”), Chapter VI, with effect from 21 November 2025.

Section 60(3) of the SS Code now carries forward that the standard entitlement of 26 weeks of paid maternity benefit is reduced to 12 weeks for a woman with two or more surviving children. The statute continues to measure eligibility by reference to the number of surviving children rather than the number of prior deliveries which is a distinction that lies at the root of disputes of this nature, since a set of twins produces two children from a single pregnancy.

Analysis of the Court’s Reasoning

The central question before the Court was narrow: whether the expression “less than two surviving children” should be read literally, so as to disqualify an employee from maternity leave for a genuinely separate pregnancy merely because her first pregnancy resulted in twins.

The Court answered this in the negative, relying on four authorities:

• Deepika Singh v. Central Administrative Tribunal, (2023) 13 SCC 681 – the Supreme Court located the right to maternity leave within Article 21 (dignity, privacy, bodily integrity) and Article 42 (humane conditions of work, maternity relief), and held that service rules on maternity leave must be construed purposively, failing which their object would be defeated.
• Commissioner of Police v. Ravina Yadav, 2024 SCC OnLine Del 4987 – the Delhi High Court observed, on a prima facie basis, that classifying employees solely by the number of surviving children lacks intelligible differentia, given that the physiological and psychological demands of pregnancy do not diminish with parity, and that a later-born child cannot be deprived of the benefit of maternal care available to earlier-born children.
• K. Umadevi v. Government of Tamil Nadu, (2025) 8 SCC 263 (2025 INSC 781) – the Supreme Court set aside the denial of maternity leave to an employee for her first child from a second marriage, notwithstanding two surviving children from a dissolved first marriage, holding that maternity leave is integral to reproductive rights under Article 21, and that the objectives of population control and maternity welfare “are not mutually exclusive” but require harmonious, purposive construction.
• J. Sharmila v. Secretary to Government, Education Department, 2010 SCC OnLine Mad 5221 – on facts closely analogous to the present case, the Madras High Court held that a rule intended to protect an employee during a second, distinct delivery cannot be read to penalise her for the number of children born during an earlier delivery, and that a literal construction would yield an untenable result: an employee delivering a single child first and twins or triplets second would, on the department’s logic, retroactively lose eligibility already exercised.

Applying this line of authority, the Telangana High Court held that treating the petitioner’s twins as two separate confinements, for the purpose of denying leave for a subsequent and factually distinct pregnancy, was inconsistent with the object of the rule and with binding constitutional principle. The Court directed the respondents to sanction 180 days of maternity leave with full pay and allowances for the petitioner’s second delivery, exercising its writ jurisdiction under Article 226 notwithstanding that the underlying government orders had not been formally challenged, on the basis that the point stood covered by settled law.

Current Regulatory Landscape and Practical Implications

This judgment should be read alongside recent legislative and judicial developments in other States, which indicate that the issue is under active reconsideration at the policy level rather than being confined to case-by-case litigation.

• Tamil Nadu amended Fundamental Rule 101(a) by G.O. in 2018 to expressly provide that an employee whose two surviving children were born as twins in a first delivery remains eligible for maternity leave on a further pregnancy; the precise fact pattern at issue here, resolved by direct rule amendment rather than litigation. More recently, following K. Umadevi, Tamil Nadu amended FR 101(a) again in March 2026 (upheld by the Madras High Court in June 2026), and state authorities have since indicated a further move toward extending full-duration leave even for a third child.
• Andhra Pradesh went further still, issuing G.O.in 2025, which removed the two-surviving-children condition altogether.
• At the central level, the Supreme Court’s decision in Hamsaanandini Nanduri v. Union of India, 2026 INSC 246 (17 March 2026), read down the three-month age restriction on adoptive mothers under Section 60(4) of the SS Code as unconstitutional, holding that maternity benefit legislation cannot be construed narrowly by reference to post-childbirth recovery alone. While concerned with adoptive rather than biological motherhood, the decision confirms that courts continue to apply a purposive, rights-based lens to Chapter VI of the SS Code, consistent with the approach taken in Umadevi and, now, in the present Telangana decision.
• Telangana, by contrast, has not amended its rules to expressly address the twins’ scenario. In the absence of a rule-level carve-out, the High Court had to reach the same result through constitutional interpretation – a less predictable and more resource-intensive route than a clear statutory exception, and one that leaves the underlying G.O.s technically unamended notwithstanding the Court’s declaration.

For employers and institutions, particularly those administering service rules with similarly worded eligibility conditions, this judgment is a signal to review internal guidance and, where necessary, seek an amendment to the governing rules to expressly address multiple-birth deliveries, rather than relying on case-by-case adjudication to reach the correct outcome.

Conclusion

The Telangana High Court’s decision in Jadi Swarupa Rani confirms a now well-established interpretive position: eligibility conditions for maternity leave framed by reference to the number of surviving children must be construed purposively, and cannot be applied so as to treat twins born in a single delivery as disqualifying an employee from leave for a later, distinct pregnancy. The decision is consistent with the Supreme Court’s reasoning in K. Umadevi and with the approach already codified by rule in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Institutions administering maternity leave rules with comparable eligibility language would be well advised to review those rules proactively, rather than await further litigation on the point.