1. Motherhood is the mother of all civilization. Family as a social institution is considered as the backbone of the society. Family is the first model of political society (Rosseau on the Social Contract). When people settled down and started living as a commune, the family was the foundation of such commune, and women was the center of such family. No civilization passed without recognising the power of mother and often figuratively projected her as Goddess. (See our own glorious past, as described by Jasodhara Bagchi, a feminist writer in her book, "Interrogating motherhood"):

"The celebration of motherhood has happened in most cultures in the world, and Indian culture is no exception. The oldest available cultural artifacts in the pre-Aryan civilization in Mohenjo-daro and Harappa bear testimony to the mother cult. The principle of fertility represented by the embodiment of mother is the oldest testimony to the sense of continuity of the species. Not just birthing but the process of nurturance that makes it incumbent upon homo sapiens to recognize the value of the mother."

A child born to a family sees the world first through the eyes of his mother and develops his cognitive skills through the vision of his family. In earlier centuries, predominantly, in agrarian society, the role of woman was limited to taking care of children, household and family. Social conditions of modern family underwent transformation due to industrialisation and urbanisation. As a result, the social and legal concept related to the society also got changed. Motherhood then has become a contentious issue in the modern society, particularly, in economic frontier, as the competing market interests override notions of culture and social justice like gender equity. Identity of a women is often tangled within the patriarchal structure of a commercially or profit motivated enterprise which dare to see mothering or family responsibility remain subordinate to their interest. Complexity of working environment as above is designed by an architecture without adhering to rules of gender equality; often overwhelmingly to suit men. In this writ petition, a distressed mother, a working woman, finds herself confronted with the institutional structure of her employer. She was thrown out of her service for continuous absence for taking care of her differently abled child. The disciplinary authority after enquiry found that absence from employment to take care of such child cannot be a reason to remain out of service. Treating unauthorised absence from service as misconduct, not justifying her continuation in service, she was removed.

2. Brief facts which are not in dispute are as follows:

The petitioner Smt. K.T. Mini, Assistant with the Life Insurance Corporation of India (hereinafter referred to as the "Corporation"), a State owned Insurance group, had unblemished and uninterrupted 17 years of service before she was removed. She joined service as an Assistant on 24.11.1989. All her trouble seems to have started on the birth of her second girl child. She was born on 14.11.2001. She was afflicted with chicken pox after two years. Later she developed speech impairment and abnormal behavior. According to the petitioner, doctors treating her, diagnosed her condition as mild autism. She was at that time working at Calicut. She took her daughter to Chennai sometime in the year 2007 on the firm belief that the child would get a better treatment. Child was admitted in Priya Speech and Hearing Centre, Madippakam Chennai. She applied for transfer to Chennai on 20.6.2007. She also applied for extra ordinary leave before proceeding for leave on 29.6.2007. Her husband, at that time, appears to be working as the Manager of a private Bank at Tirupur. It appears that she was granted LWA till 30.4.2008. In the meanwhile, her husband got a job in Bahrain in Middle East. Therefore, during the period of leave, on 28.1.2008, Mini made another request to cancel her request for tra