Maternity and career continuity of women athletes remain inadequately addressed in Indian sports governance. Critically comment.

Career continuity means an athlete's ability to return to competition after a break without losing selection standing. India's sports bodies frame eligibility norms around continuous competition records, which sit uneasily with pregnancy and post-partum recovery — a gap the Delhi High Court confronted in September 2026 when it declined wrestler Vinesh Phogat an interim exemption from Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) trial criteria [1].

The charge of inadequacy is largely valid

• No return-to-play policy: the WFI circular of 7 September 2026 confined trial eligibility to winners of specified national tournaments, making a maternity break functionally indistinguishable from voluntary absence [1].
• Uniformity as a defence: the Court accepted that criteria apply uniformly to all athletes at the interim stage, though it flagged that maternity circumstances merit examination when the policy's validity is tested [1].
• Statutory asymmetry: working women get 26 weeks' paid leave with job protection under the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 (as amended in 2017), while athletes — not "employees" of federations — enjoy no equivalent ranking or berth protection [4].
• Regulatory silence: the National Sports Development Code, 2011, the long-standing charter for National Sports Federations, addresses elections, tenure and accountability but not gender-specific career-break safeguards [3].

Yet the framework is not static

• The National Sports Governance Act, 2025 mandates a Safe Sports Policy for women and minor athletes, an internal grievance mechanism, and a National Sports Tribunal for time-bound dispute resolution [2].
• Support to elite women athletes under TOPS expanded substantially over the last decade, showing capacity to individualise athlete support [5].
• Judicial review remains available, and the Court has itself nudged the WFI toward framing maternity guidelines [1].

The problem is therefore one of policy vacuum rather than institutional absence: the architecture now exists, but the rules have not been written. Federations should adopt protected-ranking and sabbatical-style return windows within their Safe Sports Policies, with the Tribunal as the appellate safeguard. Aligning selection norms with Article 15(3)'s enabling spirit and SDG-5 would ensure motherhood ends a break, not a career.