New Delhi, June 12 -- The Supreme Court on Thursday declared that homemakers are "nation builders" whose contribution can no longer be undervalued, ruling that the loss of domestic care in motor accident cases must be monetised at a minimum of Rs.30,000 per month while computing compensation. In a significant ruling recognising the economic and social value of unpaid domestic labour, the bench of justices Sanjay Karol and N Kotiswar Singh said that the conventional practice of equating the work performed by homemakers with that of skilled or unskilled labourers fails to capture the true extent of their contribution. "The 'homemakers', to put it directly, actually are the 'nation builders' and they ought to be recognised as such," said the court in a judgment that combined legal principles governing compensation with an extensive reflection on the role of women in households and nation-building. "It is ironic to describe a homemaker as dependant on earning members, when, in reality the household's functioning depends substantially on the homemaker.The earning members are in fact solely dependent on the homemaker," it held. Pronouncing the operative part of the judgment, justice Karol said the court had evolved a new principle requiring "loss of domestic care" to be valued at a minimum of Rs.30,000 per month, in addition to all benefits available under the Constitution Bench ruling in National Insurance Co Ltd Vs Pranay Sethi (2017). The court also issued a broader call for reform of motor accident litigation, saying such cases should ordinarily be decided within one year and requesting chief justices of all high courts to monitor pendency and take corrective measures. The ruling arose from a compensation claim stemming from a fatal road accident in Punjab in 2001. While the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal delivered its award within two years, the appeal before the Punjab and Haryana high court remained pending for nearly two decades, prompting the Supreme Court to examine systemic delays in accident compensation litigation. After surveying motor accident cases from across the country, the court painted what it described as an "unhappy picture". "We may record that overall, an unhappy picture emerges. In almost 50% of the matters, pendency was over four years," noted the bench, adding that courts must remain vigilant and grant adjournments only for genuine reasons. The judgment is likely to have a far-reaching impact on compensation jurisprudence because courts across India have traditionally assigned notional incomes to homemakers by drawing comparisons with minimum wages or skilled workers. Rejecting that approach, the Supreme Court held that domestic labour occupies a unique position that cannot be measured solely through labour-market comparisons. The bench traced the longstanding failure of economic systems to account for unpaid domestic work, citing economist Sir Cecil Pigou's observation that when services are rendered by wives and mothers within families, they disappear from conventional economic calculations. Referring to national and international studies, the court noted that women in India spend more than seven hours daily on unpaid domestic work and perform 2.6 times more care giving and household work than men. It underlined that women's unpaid care giving labour is estimated to contribute between 15% and 17% of India's GDP despite remaining largely unrecognised. The judgment also drew upon the Supreme Court's Handbook on Combating Gender Stereotypes, noting that the term "housewife" should give way to the more accurate description "homemaker". "Women who are homemakers perform unpaid domestic labour...and care work," said the court, adding that such labour not only contributes to the household's quality of life but also results in substantial monetary savings. In one of the most striking portions of the judgment, the bench described homemakers as the architects of India's human capital. "These are the people responsible for laying the foundation stones on which the edifices of high-flying business persons, successful politicians, headlining artists, sought-after lawyers" and countless others are built, it noted. The court added that mothers are often a child's first teachers, shaping not merely educational development but social behaviour, cultural values and interpersonal relationships that sustain communities across generations. The ruling builds upon a line of Supreme Court precedents that have gradually expanded recognition of unpaid domestic labour. The bench referred to decisions such as Lata Wadhwa Vs State of Bihar (2001), Arun Kumar Agrawal Vs National Insurance Co Ltd (2010), Rajendra Singh Vs National Insurance Co Ltd (2020) and Kirti Vs Oriental Insurance Co Ltd (2021), all of which recognised that the services rendered by a homemaker cannot be treated as valueless merely because they do not generate a formal salary. Particularly relying on the Arun Kumar Agrawal judgment, the court emphasised that the services rendered by a wife and mother "cannot be equated with the services of an employee" and that it is "virtually impossible" to fully measure in monetary terms the loss suffered by a family upon her death. The judgment further strengthens the compensation framework laid down in the Pranay Sethi verdict, which standardised the calculation of compensation under the Motor Vehicles Act by recognising future prospects and conventional heads of compensation while seeking uniformity across tribunals and courts. By fixing a minimum benchmark of Rs.30,000 per month for loss of domestic care and directing quicker disposal of claims, the Supreme Court has sought both to enhance substantive justice for families of deceased homemakers and to ensure that such relief is not lost in decades of litigation. "The invisible is made visible," said the court, urging a re-evaluation of how society and the law perceive domestic labour....