Bengaluru: The High Court passed an order, recently, allowing husband to meet his daughter even after abandoning wife.
The petitioner said that after her husband abandoned her, he married again and never came to see her minor daughter.
Disagreeing with the woman’s argument that such a person should not be given the right to visit her daughter, the High Court upheld the order passed by the family court allowing the father to visit the daughter.
Divisional Bench comprising Justices Alok Aradhe and Vijayakumar A. Patil heard an appeal filed by a woman seeking annulment of a family court order. This order was passed by the Division Bench headed by Patil. The appellant’s husband had married after divorcing her. A divorced husband’s second wife has a child from her first husband. Her son is also dependent on her estranged husband. Granting the visitation rights of the appellant’s minor daughter to the divorced husband would affect the health of the child. Considering this apprehension, the High Court held that the family court had granted permanent custody of the minor daughter to the mother and only visitation rights to the father, and granted visitation rights to the appellant’s estranged husband.
Also, daughter can be visited on two Sundays in a month from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm. The daughter should be picked up from the appellant’s house and brought back. The first son must accompany the minor daughter. All expenses and educational expenses shall be transferred to the appellant. Daughter should be taken care of safely. Further, the order of the family court was modified by stipulating that the daughter should not be left with any other person while in custody.
The appellant and the respondent, divorced husband, were married on November 14, 2001. They had a son on July 18, 2002 and a daughter on August 8, 2007. After a few years, the relationship between the couple deteriorated. The appellant had sought divorce on the grounds of desertion and cruelty. The trial court of Dakshina Kannada granted divorce to the couple on November 23, 2010. The son was in custody of husband. Later, the estranged husband filed another petition seeking custody of the minor daughter and appointing himself as her guardian.
The appellant objected to that application, contending that the first child (son) was already in the custody of the divorced husband. After the divorce, he got married again and settled down with his wife. As the second child is a girl, she requested to be ordered to stay with her. The family court, which had refused to give custody of the minor daughter to the divorced husband, had only given him the right to visit the daughter. The divorced husband of the appellant can take the daughter for five days each during Dussehra and Christmas holidays and 15 days during the summer vacation. Otherwise, permission was given to visit daughter between 3.00 pm and 6.00 pm on one Sunday of every month.
Challenging this order, the appellant approached the High Court and sought to quash the order of the family court.