Justice Rajiv Shakdher said that confining maternity leave to only where a female employee herself carries a child, "would be turning a blind eye to the advancement that science has made".
The court also said that the word 'maternity' would also cover a situation where a female employee engages services of another woman to conceive a child with or without the genetic material being supplied by her and/or her male partner.
"In my view, the argument is partially correct, for the reason that the word maternity pertains to the character, condition, relation or state of a mother. In my opinion, where a surrogacy arrangement is in place, the commissioning mother continues to remain the legal mother of the child, both during and after the pregnancy.
"Therefore, according to me, maternity is established vis-a-vis the commissioning mother, once the child is conceived, albeit in a womb, other than that of the commissioning mother," the judge said.
"This is dehors (other than) the fact that a commissioning mother may require to be at the bedside of the surrogate mother, in a given situation, even at the pre-natal stage," he added.