Maternity issues in corporate - CEO and HR are forcing her to work for 3 months on half salary during her maternity leave

Hello, My wife is working in an IT company where there are 16 employees (9 fully employed and 7 contractual employees/workers). The company is registered under the CEO's name with 99% stake and 1% in the CEO's mother's name. My wife is 22 weeks pregnant and it is written that she needs to serve 1 month of notice period but her CEO is forcing her to work for 3 months notice period without pay. She wants fully paid maternity leave and the CEO and HR are forcing her to work for 3 months on half salary during her maternity leave and say that the next 3 months will extended and will be unpaid. What she we do in this case? How can we prove that he is not hiding the 10th employee? My wife is too stressed and he also threatened her of our childbirth on the call. We are from India and what shall we do in this case?

Also, they are forcing to work during the maternity leaves.

How many years of experience your wife has in the current organization.

Also, please ask your wife to document/record the conversations that happened, to the possible extent in case you wish to go to labor court.

Hi,

Primarily please check whether that IT company comes under the purview of Maternity Benefit Act ?

The Maternity Benefit Act is applicable to the establishments employing 10 or more employees. Whether those 7 contract employees work on full time basis or part time / assignment call basis ?

Whatsoever the case may be the approach of the employer is not good and professional.

She is in the organisation for 11 months now and her term of 1 year will be completed this 15th October, 2023.
They are strictly forcing her to come to meetings and also yesterday they made the promise on the call to give the 6 months fully paid leaves and today in the meeting they denied it. They are misleading my wife in every way and disrespecting her.
How to check if the company comes under the MB Act? As in her offer letter it is not mentioned anywhere.

We do not know if the contractual workers are on the full time/part time basis. We are completely sure that he is trying to hide these information about the employees. Also, he has revoked the access to my wife's company email id and the email ids of team which was mainly used for the work.

Hi,

Given the above information I am assuming there will not be any EPF applicable for her.

As other members mentioned we do not know how the employee structure of the org is and how many employees are being reported for the purpose of compliance.

In this scenario, I feel your wife should just submit resignation on medical grounds/Maternity and request relieving with immediate effect along with all the documents (in this case fitness certificate and reports regarding maternity etc). Submit any company assets to office/ colleague and take proof of the same photo/email confirmation etc. and mention the same on the email also.

"CEO and HR are forcing her to work for 3 months on half salary during her maternity leaves and say that the next 3 months will extended and will be unpaid"

In case the above one man show happens, Please ask them to reply to the resignation email your wife wrote. She can say she is medically unfit to work further as stated on the email.

There is a fair chance that your wife may not receive any experience letter for the 11 months.

Its better to forgo the experience and have piece of mind during this critical phase of life, than to go through such unpleasantries.

As for this : "he also threatened her of our child birth on the call". Try to record all conversations in future and submit a complaint to the nearest police station and woman grievance cells.

thanks

They will be sharing a written doc from their side to make her work on her maternity leave and one more thing we checked that they have mentioned to serve 1 month notice period in their offer letter and now they are forcing to do 3 months notice period. Shall I move legally when I receive all this on the document?

Hi,

As she is going to complete one year of service she should be eligible for Maternity leave (Though there exist some different connotation about this 12 months criteria. - The Maternity Benefit Act 1961 states that a woman should have worked with her employer for at least 80 days in the 12 months preceding the date of her expected delivery). As the Employer is not addressing the issue professionally you may seek the help of Labour Inspector of your spouse office jurisdiction and try. But these are time consuming process as Employers know "how to handle such complaints". Ultimately at this juncture your spouse should be free from anxiety, stress and hostility so better look for some amicable solution even if costs her employment.

Also no employer can insist for notice period when the employee is expecting a child.