SC Rules Remarriage No Grounds To Deny Custody Rights To Woman

Remarriage of a woman cannot be taken as a ground for denying her the custody of her child, the Supreme Court has ruled.

Though the father might be the natural guardian under the Hindu Law, but if the court is satisfied that the mother is a normal and independent young woman and the child wants to stay with her then she shall not be deprived of the custody, a Bench comprising Justices A R Lakshmanan and Altamas Kabir has held.

The judgment, which is bound to gladden many women fighting for the custody of their children was passed by the Bench while setting aside a Kerala High Court order which granted a child`s custody to the father.

Appellant Lekha, who was divorced from her Gulf-based husband P Anil Kumar, had filed the appeal against the order of the High Court which granted custody of their 11-year old child to the father after she remarried.

The high court granted custody of the boy to Kumar after he brought to its notice that Lekha after giving an assurance to the matrimonial court that she would not remarry, got married again to a man with whom she had another child.

However, Lekha pleaded that the second marriage should not be a hindrance to her getting the custody of the child as she had enough financial resources to provide it with quality education and life.

She complained that the high court erroneously granted custody of the child to her divorced husband without eliciting the boy`s consent, preferences and feelings.