SONIA SAHAYE Vs. VIKRAMAJIT SINGH SAHAYE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This legal battle carried to this Court is in respect of interim custody of minor girl child Riddhi Sahaye born to the parties on 26th November 2004. The mother Smt. Sonia Sahaye is a doctor (dentist) and is employed with NTPC at Badarpur Thermal Power Station. Both the parents of child were working and it looks she was under the care of grandparents, more particularly the paternal grandmother.

(2.) The parties had married on 2nd December 2002 and as is evident, they could not pull on together for long. In 2008 their relationship broke down and a divorce petition was filed by husband and a petition for custody of the child was filed by the wife. Since the matter before this Court is only in respect of interim custody of the child and the learned Guardianship Judge is yet to decide the petition filed by the petitioner regarding custody, it would not be appropriate and relevant to discuss about the attitude of the parties inter se, as that is not the subject matter of consideration by this Court. The only thing to be considered by this Court is whether it would be appropriate to accede to the request of the petitioner as made in this petition.

(3.) The petitioner is aggrieved by order dated 6th May, 2009 passed by learned Guardianship Judge whereby he disposed of an application under Section 151 CPC made by the petitioner seeking interim custody of the child during summer vacations, 2009 observing that vide his earlier order dated 7th February 2009, the petitioner was granted interim custody of the child on very 3rd and 4th Friday evening of every month to Sunday evening. After passing of that order, he had occasion to see the attitude of child and conduct of parties. Looking at the attitude of the child and the fact that the child was not yet comfortable with petitioner and the welfare and interest of the child being the dominant consideration, he did not think it proper that the child should be forced to spend part of vacations with the mother. He had taken into account the mental stress, through which the child had to go and the report of a Board of Doctors of AIIMS advising for not forcing the child to spend night stay with the mother. However, the learned Guardianship Judge gave liberty to the petitioner to make similar application for sharing the holidays in future when the comfort level of the child with the mother had increased.