New Delhi, April 24 (Inditop) The Delhi High Court Friday issued notices to the Delhi government and an unaided public school here over the plea of a school teacher challenging the deduction in his salary while he was on paternity leave.
Justice V.K. Shali issued notices to N.K. Bagrodia Public School, Seth Sagarmal Bagrodia Charitable Trust and the Director of Education (DoE) seeking an explanation within four weeks as to why paternity leave was denied to Chandramohan Jain.
Counsel for Jain, Ashok Aggarwal argued before the court that Jain’s wife had delivered a pre-term baby through a caesarean operation in December 2008 after which she as well as the baby were hospitalized.
Jain had stayed away from work to take care of his wife. The school deducted his salary on the ground that it had no provision for paternity leave.
In his petition Jain said that every unaided school in the capital was bound to provide paternity leave for a fortnight within 60 days before or after delivery.
He submitted that the Delhi Education Act and Rules say that the staff of unaided public schools shall be given salary, allowances, leave and other benefits equivalent to their counterparts in government schools.
The central government had in 1999 notified that all its employees would get paternity leave for a fortnight. Following that, the Delhi government also notified the same for its employees as well as for the staff of unaided public schools.
The petitioner urged the court to issue a declaration that the facility of paternity leave also applied to the staff of unaided public schools.
