HC allows child visitation rights to mother in custody case

The Karnataka High Court has granted visitation rights of two days a week to a mother in a custody battle with her mother-in-law.

With the petitioner’s 15-year-old son wishing to stay with his grandmother, Justice M Nagaprasanna said the mother cannot altogether be denied interaction with the child despite his wish. The court rejected the mother’s petition challenging the order granting her son’s custody to the grandmother.

The petitioner got married in January 2008 and has two children, aged 15 and 12. Her husband died in 2013 and she left the marital home due to disputes. In 2018, she filed an application under Section 12 of the Domestic Violence Act, requesting the court’s intervention to direct her mother-in-law to hand over her son to her. The issue of custody led to multiple rounds of litigation between the daughter-in-law and mother-in-law.

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The trial court and the first appellate courts relied upon the interaction with the child, which revealed that he wanted to stay with his grandmother and not with his mother.

The petition before the high court contended that the child should always be with the mother. It highlighted that the court cannot grant custody to the grandmother merely because the child wants to stay with her, considering the grandmother’s pampered the child.

Justice Nagaprasanna cited apex court judgements and said that the best interest and welfare of the child in any given fact should be the paramount consideration.

“The apex court further holds that courts exercising jurisdiction over such issues should act as parents patriae and ascertain the wish of the minor child and not go against the wish of the minor child. The wish of the minor child was ascertained not once but twice and on both occasions, the child wished to stay with his grandmother,” Justice Nagaprasanna said.

The court also noted that the mother who has given birth to the son cannot be left in the lurch. “The mother shall thus be entitled to visitation two days a week, at the agreed day and time. The day and time of such visitation shall be on consensus and the grandmother shall permit such visitation on the dates agreed,” the court said.