‘Kids can’t be allowed to be the score to settle personal egos of parents’

While disposing her plea, the single bench had directed the Police Commissioner, Amritsar to decide her representation within a period of wight weeks, as her application with similar grievance was pending before the Punjab Police. The woman, however, unsatisfied with the single Bench order, filed a Letter Patent Appeal (LPA) before the division Bench.

As per her petition, the woman got married in 2010 and a son was born to the couple in July 2011. Thereafter, differences started creeping in and counter-allegations were levelled, including a demand of divorce by her husband. The petitioner also alleged maltreatment and cruelty at the hands of her husband and other members of in-laws’ family and was forced to leave the matrimonial home. The woman started living at her parental house, and later her husband too moved in with her. The couple was then blessed with a girl child, but her husband continued with the demand for divorce as he wanted to marry an NRI girl as he wanted to settle abroad.

An application was moved before the Commissioner of Police, Amritsar by the woman, wherein the matter was referred to the district Women Cell after which the parties entered into a compromise. The counsel for woman, however, submitted that since the act of cruelty continued, she left the matrimonial home in June 6, 2021 but was not allowed to take along the minor children. The grievance raised by the woman is that the official respondents though recorded her statement on a complaint, but the police authorities have failed to take any effective action against the private respondents.

Hearing the appeal of the woman, the division Bench of Justices Augustine George Masih and Sandeep Moudgil said, “Both the children are with father, who is taking due care and the complaint dated August 9, 2021, before the Police Commissioner, Amritsar is still pending… the petitioner has though pressed for custody of children particularly of minor girl child aged about two years but failed to demonstrate the means and resources to provide due care, necessary facilities of at least minimum and protection, which is to be examined being paramount consideration for this Court.”

“The record further indicates that the father has even gone to the extent of staying at his in-laws’ house with his wife for the sake of saving the matrimonial life as well as to secure the future of minor children but the appellant-wife has gone to various authorities with certain complaints, which lacked any corroborative material on record of this court,” said the Bench.

The Bench said that even otherwise the respondent is the biological father of both the minor children and cannot be held to be keeping them in illegal confinement “by any stretch of imagination” when both the parents are entangled in a matrimonial dispute. “The custody of the children cannot be allowed to be score to settle personal egos of parents but welfare of the children is to be kept in mind. The wife has alleged that husband is desirous of marrying another NRI lady and wishes to settle abroad but this contention lacks any cogent evidence in any manner whatsoever,” the Bench said in the order.