The High Court of Gujarat stated in its order that the plan for hiring AWWs and AWHs may be designed “to take advantage of the completely unequal bargaining power of an unemployed woman, especially if she is from a rural background.” Citing the constitutional provisions that prohibit states from discriminating on the basis of sex and gender, HC noted in its decision that “all employees working as AWWs and AWHs are women, and this could leave the government open to allegations that since they are women, the state discriminates against them by not including them in government service and, on the other hand, paying them meager emoluments under the misleading term ‘honorarium’.”
