Biological parents' plea for child's interim custody nixed
Mumbai, Sept. 2 -- 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.
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.
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.
The court was informed that the two couples 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. 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.
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.
The biological parents said that the district judge's refusal to give them interim custody was against the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956 as her foster parents were "complete strangers".
Justice Jamadar 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"....
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