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 | | Valsala Menon (centre) with her children Vrinda and Vipin | Valsala Menon, a 49-year-old widow, has been fighting a legal battle with her employers for over a decade now.
Menon claims harassment at work ever since her maternity leave began in 1986. She approached the Labour Court and the Industrial Court, before knocking on the High Court doors in 2003.
While the matter in the Industrial Court is still pending, the High Court in its December 2007 order directed the company to stop harassing her and pay 50 per cent of the back wages she was denied during her termination period from 1996 to 2004.
Lone battle
Menon, a typist with Chunilal Mulchand and Co at Colaba, says her problems began when she resumed her duties after just one-week maternity leave in 1986.
“They appointed a new typist while I was away. However, the employer compromised when I approached the Labour Commission that year. But things always remained sour.
After his death in 1988, his partners asked me to quit,” she says. Menon was terminated from the company in 1996. She approached the Bombay High Court in 2003 for relief. “In 2006, Justice DY Chandrachud of the Bombay High Court directed the company to reinstate her and pay her as per the previous Labour Court order.
They were also asked to stop harassing her mentally,” says Menon’s advocate Wilson Varghese. In December 2007, Justice Chandrachud dismissed the employers’ review petition against the 2006 order. The employers were contesting the work hours fixed for Menon by the High Court in 2003.
Menon’s husband died of a heart attack in 2005. She says she could never get another job because of legal complications. “I’m struggling to make ends meet with these dragging court cases.
Knowing that I have two children (Vipin and Vrinda), my employers do not even pay me the Rs 7,500 salary stipulated in the court order.”
When contacted, Amin Kapadia, a partner with Chunilal Mulchand and Co, refused to comment, but said that the company is contemplating another review petition against the High Court order.
What the Act says
Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 applies to women who work in factories, mines, plantations, performance establishments and shops with more than 10 employees, and provides 12 weeks paid maternity leave and six weeks paid leave in relation to miscarriage or termination of pregnancy. But the act does not apply to employees covered by the Employees’ State Insurance Act 1948 | 
