ARCHANA DASARADHI Vs. V SIVAKUMAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal has been filed by the mother challenging the order of the Additional Chief Judge-cum-Principal Special Judge for SPE & ACB cases, Hyderabad, allowing the application filed by the father under Section 25 of the Guardian and Wards Act read with Section 6 of the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act for the custody of the minor, Master Manasa Rama.

(2.) For convenience sake the parties would be referred to as the father and mother in this judgment. The father, respondent herein, filed an application for the custody of the minor, Manasa Rama, aged about 4 years at the time of filing of the aplication (now about 6 years) alleging that the father and the mother of the ward were married on 2-10-1987 according to Hindu rites and custom and the ward was born on 10-7-1988. However, due to certain differences between them, an application under Section 13-B of the Hindu Marriage Act was filed by both of them seeking dissolution of the marriage by a decree of divorce by mutual consent. The same was ultimately granted on 7-2-1991 by the Court. At the time of granting of the decree for divorce, as the minor boy was an infant in arms requiring maternal love and affection, it is the allegation of the father, he consented for the mother to continue to have the custody of the minor boy. He stated that he is a chartered accountant running institution for coaching professional courses at Madras and set apart a sum of Rs.25,000/-in a fixed deposit in the name of the minor boy and he used to come to Hyderabad to see the minor boy after duly intimating the mother of the boy. On 1-5-1992 he requested the mother through a letter to make the minor boy available so that he can spend sometime with him but there was no reply and on 14-5-1992 when he contacted the mother, appellant herein, by phone she expressed her inability to arrange a meeting between the minor boy and the father due to certain personal inconvenience. Later the father came to Hyderabad on 2-6-1992 and a meeting was arranged at the Abids shopping centre through the good offices of the advocate who appeared for the mother. At the meeting he found that the minor boy was looking pale and addressed him as uncle instead of father. He apprehends that there is a systematic brain washing of the minor child as against him He also came to know that in the school records the minor's father's name was noted as Dasarathi and not his name. The mother married a second time after divorce and has step-children to look after and she is also a working woman and therefore she may not be in a position to look after the minor boy. He stated that he is in affluent condition and that he has got sufficient means by way of landed property also and he is in a position to look after the minor. Therefore, on the basis of the allegations contained in the application, the father claims custody of the minor boy, Manasa Rama.

(3.) The application was resisted by the mother by filing a counter denying the allegations contained in the petition regarding the attempts made by the father or the events that had happened on 1 -5-1992 or the response over telephone on 14-5-1992. She denied all those allegations. She also denied the allegations made that her younger and elder sisters along with their husbands and one Mr. Ravi abused the father in foul language, etc. She also stated that the father contracted a third marriage and that she is. not a working woman and she has no step-children to look after, that the welfare of the minor boy serves much better if the minor boy is left in her care and custody and that it is not in the interest of the minor boy to remove him from the custody of the natural mother and give the same to the father.