The Punjab and Haryana High Court in this context had clearly stated that even if the woman had been engaged in an extramarital relationship, this doesn’t mean that she could not be a good mother and this can never be the ground for not giving her child custody if any and in this case, the court has granted custody over a four- year old child to her mother.
The court noted that the husband had failed to substantiate the allegations pertaining to the character of the woman that she had an extramarital relationship with her relative.
If we see the important facts of the case, both husband and wife , mother and father had gone to Australia and the child was born in Australia and in her initial year she was brought up there only. Due to few differences in their marriage, the woman filed a petition for divorce in the year 2019 in the Australian Court but before the decision of the court, her husband promised her that such acts won’t be repeated and thus they again started living together. Further they arrived in India in the year January 2020, and thereafter the husband kept the passport of the child and took the child away from her mother and started threatening his wife.
Thus, in order to protect herself she immediately rushes to Australia where she filed the petition for the custody of the child. The Australian Court passed an interim order asking the husband to return the minor child. During this time, she even moved to Punjab and Haryana High Court for the custody matter.
The plea that was filed by the mother who had for the issuance of writ of habeas corpus moved to the High Court for seeking custody of her minor daughter.
The court there ordered that since the child is an Australian citizen and the matter had been well settled by the Australian Court then in the best interest and welfare of the child, the should be handed to the mother.
Since, the mother is residing in Australia, upon her arrival in India (after following the protocol of Covid-19), the custody of the child would be handed to her by the Respondent No. 4.
