The welfare of the minor child will be better taken care of by the mother: Madras High Court

CHENNAI: Observing that welfare of a minor child would better be serviced by the mother, a division bench of Madras High Court has refused to interfere with a lower court order to hand over the child to the mother.”Even today, the child is of a tender age of eight years and her interest, in our opinion, will be better served only if she is in the custody of her mother,” said a bench of Justices R Subramanian and D Nagarjun.

Even though there is no provision under the Guardians and Wards Act making age a factor for deciding custody, the bench noted that judicial notice can be taken on the provisions of the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act enabling custody of a minor girl child less than 10 years to be with the mother. The matter pertains to an appeal filed by the father, Stalin Samuel, challenging the 2022 order of the family court in Salem, to hand over the minor child to the mother, Gracy Sylvia.

The couple got married in 2014 and stayed for a brief period in Mumbai before leaving for the US. The child was born in 2015. After they got separated, the child was kept in the custody of Samuel and he had left the child with his parents in Maharashtra before going again to the US. Sylvia filed a divorce petition and an interlocutory application for custody of the child, based on which the family court ordered in her favour. Rejecting the contention of the father that he had resigned his job in the US and come back only to take care of the child, the bench upheld the order of the family court and directed handing over the custody of the child to the mother in four weeks.