LAHORE: The Lahore High Court held that any agreement by the mother relinquishing her right to custody of the minor is neither enforceable nor valid and cannot be used as a tool to deprive a mother of her right to custody.
The court held this in a petition of Ayesha Tahir and set aside the impugned judgment of appellate court retaining the interim custody of the minor Muhammad Babar by his father. The court directed the guardian court to decide the pending petitions of the parties preferably within a period of three months.
The court, however, observed that meanwhile, the meeting schedule chalked out by the guardian court shall be observed accordingly. The court said the operative part of the impugned judgment reveals that too much emphasis had been laid upon the fact that if the custody of the minor retained with the father no harm will be caused to health or education of the minor. The court observed that the appellate court below ignored the fact that the minor was of tender age.
The court said the appellate court below should not interfere in the interim custody of the minor given by the guardian court to the petitioner till final determination by the guardian court.
The court observed that depriving the minor of such tender age from the love and care which a mother can extend is certainly not in his best interest that has far reaching impact on mental and physical upbringing of the minor.
The court said it is all the more important and in the welfare of the minor to hand over the interim custody to the petitioner who was divorced by alleging and imputing bad character to her as distance between the minor and the mother at tender age may result in hardening of such allegations in the malleable mind of the minor.
The court also held a mother is entitled to the custody of her male child until he has completed the age of seven years and of her female child until she has attained puberty. Only rider put on the right of mother is her second marriage.
The court observed a minor should not be made ping pong between the parents in their mutual egoistic tussle but in the instant case the guardian court handed over the custody of the minor to the mother and the appellate court below upended the order of the guardian court by making the minor ping pong.
The petitioner has assailed order of the appellate court whereby the order of the trial court was set aside and interim custody of the minor Muhammad Babar was allowed to be retained by respondent father.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
Comments
Comments are closed.