Issue Of Welfare Of Child Has Paramount Significance, Not Legal Principles Or Legal Rights Of Parties!

While setting aside a high court judgment, which had directed a father to handover the custody of the child to its mother, the Supreme Court observed that issue of welfare of the child has paramount significance over the legal principles like 'comity of courts’ and the doctrines of “intimate contact” and “closest concern”.

“The appellant being the biological father of Aadvik, his custody of the child can by no means in law be construed as illegal or unlawful drawing the invocation of a superior Court’s jurisdiction to issue a writ in the nature of habeas corpus. We are, in the textual facts and on an in-depth analysis of the attendant circumstances, thus of the view that the dislodgment of the child as directed by the impugned decision would be harmful to it.”

“The invocation of these principles/doctrines has to be judged on the touchstone of myriad attendant facts and circumstances of each case, the ultimate live concern being the welfare of the child, other factors being acknowledgeably subservient there to,"

“As has been claimed by the appellant, the child is growing in a congenial environment in the loving company of his grand-parents and other relatives. He has been admitted to a reputed school and contrary to the nuclear family environment in US, he is exposed to a natural process of grooming in the association of his elders, friends, peers and playmates, which is irrefutably indispensable for comprehensive and conducive development of his mental and physical faculties.”