The man and the woman had married in June 2009 in Delhi. The couple was blessed with the baby boy in February 2011.
A man has deserted his wife and the son just 16 months after the birth of the child.
The woman remarried after 3 years of her divorce and resides in Dubai with her second husband who is well placed in life and is working in a multinational company there and her son.
The man also got remarried but even the second marriage did not last for too long and he had got divorced.
In May 2013, the man approached a family court in Delhi seeking custody of his son and to be declared as his natural guardian. But the plea was dismissed by the family court after which he moved the High Court which also refused to grant him the son’s custody.
Judgement Of The High Court
The court noted that the woman is happily remarried and living with her son and her second husband in Dubai.
In the Petition filed by the man (woman’s first husband) stated that the step-father would be mistreating him or that the respondent (woman) was likely to lose interest in him (son) after she gives birth to a child from the second marriage.
A bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Asha Menon said that all these excused made by the petitioner in his petition is vague and asking for son’s custody on these filmy excuses would not be considered valid.
The High Court said the children are the first and the most susceptible victims of a shattered interpersonal relationship between the spouses. The bench said its nothing but a serious reservation in disturbing the custody of the child when a man gave divorce just after 16 months of the birth of a child.
The bench further added that the woman had given birth to the child at Hyderabad at her parental house and since then she is taking care of her child. There is no such demonstration that a man had ever established contact with the woman and reached out to the child.
The court said it had not found any reason to remove the minor son’s custody from his mother and handed over to the father.
The woman also had alleged that she was harassed by her first husband and her in-laws for dowry. She also logged a case for alleged harassment against her husband and her in-laws.
The Delhi High Court was further informed that the guardianship petition was also filed by the petitioner. The High Court said that the guardianship petition filed by the man appeared as a tool to reach a woman rather than a genuine means to reach out to the child custody.
The Delhi High Court dismissed the man’s appeal challenging a family court’s decision to deny the child’s custody to him.
The court lastly said that even if the High Court accepts the man’s plea that the Family Court has erred in refusing the child’s custody even after knowing the fact that the woman is remarried and taken the child to Dubai and there was a possibility that the step-father will mistreat the minor, the same argument would apply to the man who also got remarried.
It said that there was no guarantee that the second wife would have taken good care of the child from the man’s first marriage as against the biological mother.
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