A mother’s determination to build a better career and secure a financially stable future for her children has helped her overturn a custody order in favour of her estranged husband, who, the court criticised for, devoting his energies to prolonged litigation instead of improving his own financial position.
The Supreme Court has permitted the woman, an academic with a Ph.D in engineering, to take her two children to the United Kingdom, where she has secured a teaching job, and enroll them in a school there. “The efforts made by the appellant-mother even while contesting the multi-pronged litigation to pursue different jobs and thereby ensuring financial security for herself and for the children is indeed appreciable and weighs heavily in her favour for claiming custody of the children. The mother’s efforts exhibit her resolve and committed approach for securing the children’s future prospects,” noted a bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta in a judgment last week.
The judgment arose from a custody dispute that had continued for more than seven years. The couple married in 2011 and separated in 2018, when the woman was four months pregnant. She subsequently raised both children, a son now aged about 13 and a daughter aged about seven. They also rejected her request to relocate the children to the UK after she secured a lecturer’s position at the University of Hull, with a monthly salary of approximately ₹ 3 lakh.
Previous court orders viewed these moves as evidence of a “nomadic life” and granted sole custody to the father.
The case will next be heard in January 2027. The court also took note of a criminal case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act pending against the father after the son disclosed allegations of sexual abuse before a psychiatrist at NIMHANS. A chargesheet was filed after investigation. The court relied on the children’s stated wishes and counsellors’ reports, which recorded their reluctance to interact with their father during visitation sessions.
The Supreme Court said that while the prosecution was pending, granting custody to the father would be “totally unwarranted and unjustified”. It said the children’s safety, emotional well-being and best interests could not be subordinated to the father’s claim for custody.
The court made its earlier stay on the lower courts’ custody orders absolute and permitted the mother, for the present, to take the children to the UK and admit them to a school there. She must file details of their schooling within six weeks and undertake to produce them before the court whenever required.
