The Karnataka High Court has imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 on a man seeking custody of the child from his first marriage. The petitioner had moved the high court challenging the dismissal of his application before the family court.
Justice Krishna S Dixit quoted a recent judgment of the division bench of the High Court of Karnataka that held that the act of a Muslim in espousing a second wife during the subsistence of first marriage per se amounts to cruelty and that not only the first wife can stay away from the matrimonial home but seek divorce too on that ground.
The couple was married in April 2009 and stayed in Arizona in the US for some time. They had a male child in August 2013, and meanwhile, the husband, an employee with a multinational company, married another woman. He moved the family court seeking for dissolution of marriage in 2016.
The petitioner has been residing with his second wife and the child begotten from her. The family court rejected the application for the custody of the child from his first marriage, however, accorded him visitation rights. He contended before the high court that he is in a better position to take care of the child from a financial perspective and can also give a complete family environment.
Justice Krishna S Dixit noted that the petitioner’s wife has been bringing up the child single-handedly facing all the cases filed by her husband. The court had long interactions with the parties and the child and found that the child is being well-groomed by the mother. The court also noted that the child too wished to continue in the custody of the mother.
“If the wife can stay away from the matrimonial home on the grounds of a second marriage, it goes without saying that she can normally retain the exclusive custody of her minor child. An argument to the contrary would permit an unscrupulous husband who contracts another marriage, to pressure his first wife to continue in the matrimonial home, eventually retaining the child in his exclusive custody,” the court said.
The court directed the husband to pay Rs 50,000 cost amount to his first wife within a month and added that failure to pay would result in the suspension of all visitation rights granted by the family court.
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