NEW DELHI: A man lost interim custody of his eight-year-old daughter, ordered by Kerala HC to stay with her estranged parents alternatively for 15 days in a month, for not being able to provide home-cooked food even for a single day during the stay with him.
After interacting with the child, a bench of SC Justices Vikram Nath, Sanjay Karol and Sandeep Mehta found several reasons – the girl not getting home-cooked food, separated from her three-year-old brother, and no one except father for company – for quashing the HC order on the ground that even though he is a doting father, the surroundings and circumstances at his place is not conducive for her.
The man, working at Singapore, had rented out a place in Thiruvananthapuram and used to fly down every month to be with his daughter.
Writing the judgment, Justice Mehta said, “Continued consumption of food procured from restaurants/hotels would pose a health hazard, even to a grown-up person, what to talk of a tender aged child of eight years. The child requires nutritious home-cooked food for her overall well-being, growth and development. Unfortunately, the father is not in a position to provide such nutrition to the child.”
SC said it would have considered asking the father to provide home-cooked food, but “the fact that the child gets no company whatsoever except for that of the father during the interim custody period of 15 days is an additional factor which weighs heavily against his claim for the child’s custody at this stage.”
Finding the mother works from home and has her parents with her, SC said the girl would get better company at mother’s place in addition to the company of her brother.
SC also frowned at the HC order granting 15-day custody every month of the three year-old son to the man, terming it “grossly unjustified” which could have serious adverse effect on the emotional and physical well-being of the son being forced to be separated from the mother at a tender age.
“Hence, the emotional and moral support which the child gets at her mother’s home is manifold than what is being provided by the father during the interim custody period. The period of 15 days during which the daughter would be with the father would also lead to deprivation of her company to her sibling, the boy child aged three years,” it said.
SC allowed the man to get interim custody of the daughter on alternate Saturdays and Sundays of every month and interact with them on video call two days every week. “On either of these two days, father will be entitled to meet & have interim custody of the child for a period of four hours subject to the comfort of the child and under supervision of a child counsellor,” it said.
