Following a furore and interventions from the Delhi Commission for Women, a Rajya Sabha MP and its own employees' union, the State Bank of India has withdrawn a controversial circular which said that new women recruits who are more than three months pregnant will be considered 'temporarily unfit' and can only join work four months after giving birth.
After noting that SBI has been proactive towards the care and employment of its women employees and that 25 percent of its workforce is now women, a press release by the bank said that it had decided to keep the revised policy in abeyance "in view of public sentiments".
The DCW had on Saturday sent a notice to SBI over the circular, in which it said
"This is a very serious matter. This action of the bank appears to be discriminatory and illegal as it's contrary to the Maternity Benefits provided under 'The Code of Social Security, 2020'. Further, it discriminates on the basis of sex which is against the fundamental rights provided under the Constitution of India."
The circular, issued on 31 December 2021, was supposed to come into effect from 1 April 2022. According to news agency PTI, the pre-existing rules allowed for women who were up to six months pregnant to join if they had a doctor's certificate showing that the work would not interfere with their pregnancy or adversely affect their health.
The SBI's decision drew strong criticism, not only on social media, but from its own employees' union.
The All India State Bank of India Employees' Association has written to the bank to withdraw the guidelines, with its general secretary KS Krishna saying they were "fundamentally prejudicial and against womanhood," according to PTI.
The union has also argued that the previous six-month rule should be removed.
Rajya Sabha MP Binoy Viswam (Communist Party of India) has sought a rollback of the decision, writing a letter to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman regarding the circular.
"It appears that under the garb of 'empowering women', the new guidelines, which consider pregnant women who are three months and above as being temporarily unfit for an appointment, are in fact arbitrarily discriminating against them. This policy fails to consider the interests of working women and will cause further discrimination against them in the workspace [sic]," he wrote, according to news agency ANI.
(With inputs from PTI and ANI.)
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