MOHAMMAD SHAHERYAR KHAN Vs. HUMAIRA KHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These two appeals are preferred under Section 47 of the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890 ('the Act for short) questioning the order dated 14-6-1995 of the Family Court at Hyderabad in O.P.No. 35 of 1995, which was so numbered on 3-6-1995 after O.P.No. 1021 of 1994 on the file of the Additional Chief Judge, City Civil Court, Hyderabad, was transferred to that Court after it was established on 4-3-1995. C.M.A.Nos. 793 and 886 of 1995 are preferred by the respondent and the petitioner in the O.P. respectively against that order. They are heard together and they are being disposed of by this common judgment.

(2.) This is a case where the mother and father contest for the guardianship of the person of their children and illustrates the psychological trauma experienced by the children in the process at their very impressionable age. Humaira Khan is the mother and petitioner in the O.P. Mohammed Shaheryar Khan is the father and respondent in the O.P. They will be referred to hereafter as the petitioner and the respondent respectively. They belong to the Sunni sect of Muslims. They were married on 3-12-1987. They have three minor children. The eldest is a son born on 20-2-1989 and named Sardar Yar Khan @ Umair; the second is also a son, born on 15-9-1991 and named Mohammed Mohiuddin Masood Yar Khan @ Uzair; and the third and the last is the daughter born on 27-1-1993 and named Barkatunnissa Begum @ Inaya.

(3.) Serious differences seem to have cropped up between the spouses even before Umair was born. Less than one month before Umair wt.s born, on 24-1-1989 the petitioner was taken away to her parental home by her father A statement of the petitioner's father was reduced to writing on stamp paper on that day i.e. 24-1-1989 (marked as Ex. A-16). This bears the signatures of the petitioner's father, petitioner, respondent and his mother, sister and brother-in- law. Petitioner's father stated therein, inter alia, as follows: