New Delhi: The Supreme Courtroom just lately overturned an Odisha Excessive Courtroom order permitting the organic father of a woman her custody, observing {that a} 14-year-old little one can’t be handled as chattel. “She was residing fortunately along with her paternal aunt,” the highest court docket mentioned whereas listening to an enchantment by the paternal aunt (father’s sister) in opposition to the excessive court docket order and additional noticed the soundness of a kid is of “paramount significance”.
The Supreme Courtroom, in its ruling, took into consideration that the kid, born in March 2014, had been residing with the sister of her organic father since she was roughly three months previous. The court docket clarified that the case didn’t contain claims of adoption, which aren’t permissible beneath Mohammedan regulation, nor had been there claims of guardianship, as reported by PTI.
As an alternative, “the dispute centered solely on the custody of the kid. Guardianship can also be not being claimed. It’s only the dispute relating to custody of the kid,” a bench of Justices CT Ravikumar and Rajesh Bindal mentioned, as quoted by PTI.
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SC Bench Engaged In Direct Interplay With Youngster
In its judgment on Monday, the SC bench talked about that it had engaged in direct interplay with the kid concerned within the case. The kid mentioned, she was completely happy residing with the current household and that she didn’t want to be “destabilised”. Moreover, the court docket noticed that when custody was initially granted to the paternal aunt, she was single. Nonetheless, she is now a mom herself, with two youngsters.
Regardless of the paternal aunt’s change in marital standing and her new function as a mom, the Supreme Courtroom’s determination remained unaffected because the bench prioritised the kid’s expressed choice to stay along with her aunt. Preserving in view her age at current, she is able to forming an opinion in that regard, it famous.
Moreover, the court docket reiterated that the kid shouldn’t be handled as mere property, emphasising that she can’t be compelled to stay along with her organic father, with whom she has not resided since start, as per PTI.
“The soundness of the kid can also be of paramount consideration,” the SC mentioned. The mom of the lady had given start to twins in 2014. Whereas the couple saved one of many two infants with them, they handed over the lady to her maternal grandmother to boost her. The maternal grandmother saved her for 3 months earlier than handing her over to her aunt with whom she was residing till the Odisha Excessive Courtroom order.