PRAYAGRAJ, July 24 -- : The Allahabad high court has held that for getting the benefits of maternity leave in service, there need not be any fixed gap between the two pregnancies.

The court said that maternity benefit shall be governed by the provisions of the Social Security Code, 2020, which does not put any embargo, by way of timeline, between two pregnancies.

With this observation, Justice Siddharth Nandan set aside the order dated January 9, 2026 issued by medical education department by which the claim of the petitioner nurse, Shikha Yadav, was rejected on the ground that the maternity benefit leave can be granted only when there is a gap of two years between two pregnancies.

The court accordingly directed the petitioner to move ...