Gayatri Balasamy v. ISG Novasoft Technologies Ltd.

In 2025, the Madras High Court heard the case of Gayatri Balasamy against ISG Novasoft Technologies Ltd. The plaintiff, a former senior software engineer, alleged she was wrongfully terminated shortly after returning from maternity leave. Balasamy claimed the termination was a retaliatory act following her complaints about a hostile work environment and denial of statutory maternity benefits. ISG Novasoft argued that the termination was a part of a legitimate downsizing exercise and performance-based layoffs, denying any connection to her maternity status. The case scrutinized internal HR policies, email correspondences, and the company's adherence to the Maternity Benefit Act, testing the boundaries between corporate restructuring and protected employment rights.

The Madras High Court ruled in favor of Gayatri Balasamy, holding that ISG Novasoft Technologies Ltd. failed to prove that the termination was unrelated to her maternity leave. The court ordered her reinstatement with full back-wages and continuity of service, along with compensation for mental agony, severely criticizing the company for attempting to cloak discriminatory practices under the guise of redundancy.

The core dispute centered on whether the termination constituted unlawful gender discrimination and a violation of the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, or if it was a permissible, non-discriminatory business decision as part of a larger organizational restructuring. The evidentiary value of the temporal proximity between the plaintiff's protected activity (maternity leave) and the adverse employment action was a critical legal question.

The judgment sent a strong signal to the Indian IT sector, reinforcing the legal safeguards for working mothers against discriminatory downsizing. It prompted many multinational and domestic tech firms to audit their layoff protocols to ensure strict compliance with the Maternity Benefit Act. The case was widely cited by women's rights organizations as a landmark victory in combating workplace maternity discrimination and empowering female professionals in the private sector.