HC dismisses biological parents’ plea for interim custody of child

A single-judge bench of justice N J Jamadar cited eight reasons, including the psychological impact on the child who had lived with her adoptive parents since she was an infant, while denying the interim custody to the biological parents

Mumbai Observing that a child’s psychological wellbeing was crucial, the Bombay High Court on Monday dismissed a petition filed by the biological parents of an 11-year-old girl seeking her interim custody. The court allowed the child to remain with her adoptive parents until a trial court takes a final decision over her permanent custody.

HC dismisses biological parents’ plea for interim custody of child

A single-judge bench of justice N J Jamadar cited eight reasons, including the psychological impact on the child who had lived with her adoptive parents since she was an infant, while denying the interim custody to the biological parents.

Until the matter is finally decided by the district court in Kalyan, the child will remain with her adoptive parents and the biological parents will be allowed to visit her two days of the week, the court ruled. The biological parents had moved the high court in 2023 against a district judge’s order of November 2022 refusing them interim custody of the child, while a final decision on her permanent custody remains pending.

The court was informed that the two couples locked in the custody battle were once neighbours and the men were also co-workers. The child, referred to by the court as Y, was the biological parents’ third daughter while their neighbours had no children. Y was born in December 2014 and when she was just three months old, their neighbours allegedly implored her parents to give them temporary custody of the child as “it would have a positive impact on the state of mind of the wife of the respondent (adoptive father) and she might conceive”. However, when it was time to enroll the child in school, the biological parents said, their neighbours had already enrolled her in a school giving her their name. They claimed that their neighbours were “taking undue advantage of the generosity”. After this, they alleged, the adoptive parents kept Y away from her biological parents under some pretext or the other and “forcibly and illegally retained the custody of Y.”

The adoptive parents told the court that in January 2015, Y’s biological parents had given her to them in an adoption ceremony and there was a naming ceremony held three months later in Parel. For five years, they said, the biological parents had no objection with the child living with them. They said they had loved and raised Y as their own daughter.

The biological parents said that the district judge’s refusal to give them the child’s interim custody was against the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956 as her foster parents were “complete strangers” and not related to the child.

Justice Jamadar, however, held that the child had lived with her adoptive parents since infancy. She had not “seen, perceived, and understood the petitioners (biological parents) as her parents”. The court said that it appeared the child was given to her adoptive parents voluntarily and there was no dispute till she was enrolled in school.

“Although the wishes of the child are not decisive, yet, her wishes cannot be brushed aside completely as immaterial or inconsequential,” Justice Jamadar said. He also observed that continuity in the child’s routine would be seriously affected if her interim custody is transferred to the biological parents. He said that “prima facie, there is an imminent risk of such abrupt transfer affecting the psychological well-being of the child Y”.