SBI in bad light for new rules stating pregnant women “temporarily unfit”

The State Bank of India (SBI) has at the receiving end after it tweaked its recruitment rules wherein a woman who is over three months pregnant will be considered “temporarily unfit” and she may be allowed to join within four months after delivery.

Swati Maliwal, the chief of Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), described SBI’s guidelines as both discriminatory and illegal. “State Bank of India seems to have issued guidelines preventing women who are over three months pregnant from joining service and have termed them as temporarily unfit. We have issued a Notice to them seeking withdrawal of this anti-women rule.”

The DCW has sought a copy of the new guidelines as well as a copy of the similar rules operational before this. It has sought an action taken report in the matter. The bank’s new guidelines has also elicited criticism from the All India State Bank of India Employees’ Association.

The new guidelines says that a candidate would be considered fit in case of pregnancy which is less than three months. “However, if pregnancy is of more than three months, she will be considered temporarily unfit and she may be allowed to join within four months after delivery of child,” as per the medical fitness and ophthalmological standards for new recruits and promotees dated December 31, 2021. Earlier, women candidates with up to six months of pregnancy were allowed to join the bank subject to various conditions. The conditions include furnishing a certificate from a specialist gynaeologist that her taking up bank’s employment at that stage is no way likely to interfere with her pregnancy or the normal development of the foetus, or is not likely to cause her miscarriage to adversely affect her health.

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Su Venkatasan, Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M), MP from Madurai, also criticized the SBI’s guidelines. He said this is a clear violation of gender equality enshrined in the Indian Constitution.

With growing backlash, the SBI has withdrawn the controversial guidelines. In an official statement, it said SBI has decided to keep the revised instructions regarding recruitment of pregnant women candidates in abeyance and continue with the existing instructions.