Introduction

It was in the year 2017 that the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act had been introduces in India along with another very important bill known as the Paternity Benefit Bill eventually enacted in 2018. While this bill had been proposed in the Lok Sabha in 2017, a lot of stress was laid on the fact that there needs to be a mandate for men who are in fact equally responsible for availing off benefits accrued after the birth of a child and in consequence to this, the Lok Sabha mandated that a compulsory paternity leave of fifteen days which could be extended up to a period of three months must be granted to all new father's.

With the equality of rights and opportunities between men and women and with the rise of feminism in society, there existed a need to recognize the role of the father as an equal contributor to raise a new born child. This gave father's the much needed opportunity for bonding with their new born children without any compromises on the work front which could render them in a very precarious state. It was also reiterated that this was absolutely necessary since this drew father's closer towards their role and responsibilities in childcare without the constraints of the workplace with extended time and space required for any father to adapt to newfound parenthood and thereby help the mother who otherwise was left to handle all the duties single handedly.

The International Labour Organization in its report in 2014 reiterated they there existed no particular standard which specifically managed the aspects of paternity leaves, however it's 2009 resolution on gender equality, provided much recognition to the fact that both work as well as familial responsibilities were the duties of both men and women alike with no special privilege or demarcation for either of the genders.

Thus, the Paternity Benefit Bill accommodates several advantages to new fathers such as mandatory paternity leaves in order to enable working father's to be more in tune with their responsibilities as a father and towards their family in general.

This paternity Benefit Bill is of great comfort to every male employee looking to become a father. If the Paternity Bill gets passed after its much longed for proposition in 2017, the bill would revolutionize the way we view the birth of a child and the responsibilities involved with it in our country particularly. This is due to the following reasons:-

• The said bill has an objective of covering both the organized (Government) sector as well as the unorganized (Private) sector.
• Alongside this, the bill also provides for and covers the self-employed class of the economy as well.
• Next, any male employee who has worked for a minimum of 80 days in any establishment shall be entitled to avail the benefits provided under the Paternity Benefits Bill.
• Furthermore, the paternity Benefits are generally calculated over the average daily wage which is payable to the employee for the number of days where he has actually worked.
• Moreover, the Paternity Bill also seeks to create a fund known as the Parental Benefit Scheme Fund for securing the payments accrued to any male employee covered under this scheme.
• Within the terms of this fund, the employer, the employee as well as the Central Government have to mandatorily contribute a specific amount towards the fund which would be used to meet the costs accrued under the Paternity Benefits provided within the Paternity Bill.
• Furthermore, in addition to this, the Central Government shall still reserve all rights to issue guidelines pertaining to this Parental Benefit Scheme for the sole objective of providing paternity benefits for all new father's under the given Bill.
• Currently however, every Central civil service and all India rules permit all Central Government employees with a mandatory paternity leave of 15 days wherein this same rule is also applicable in the case of child adoption.

Landmark Case over Paternity Leave Benefits

• An interesting case which occurred in 2009 was the judgment in the matter of Chander Mohan Jain v. N.K Bagrodia Public School, wherein a private school teacher had rightfully approached the Delhi High Court in order  to challenge the rejection of his paternity leave application and the further deductions from his salary for availing the same paternity leaves.
• The Delhi High Court, in its judgment held that "all male employees of unaided recognized private schools were entitled to paternity leave", thereby directing the school to refund the money which had been wrongfully deducted from the teacher's salary.
• While this judgment did not make a huge impact over the bill that was proposed only years later, it did establish the base for the setting forth of paternity rights for men and provisions of responsible schemes and policies as far as working parents were concerned.

Conclusion

As we can determine from the above analysis, the enactment of the Paternity Benefit Act will provide men with the right to fatherhood and bonding with their new born child which was not seen as important or required before, but is an integral right of every parent. In light of providing equality of rights and responsibilities for both men and women, such a Bill will increase the welfare of the society in general as well as help India to surge ahead as a country with some of the best employment practices.

#tags- paternity leave, paternity, men, male employee, fatherhood, maternity benefits act, equality, lok sabha, government.

N/A