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Selvaraj vs. Revathi

SLP (Crl.) · 2023 INSC 1054Decided 6 Dec 2023
SLP (Crl.) No. 9914 of 2018
Vikram Nath · Rajesh Bindal

Background

The parties married in 2010 and had a son in 2011, but their marriage broke down and the father filed for divorce in 2014. The mother obtained an order from a Magistrate directing the father to hand over the child's custody to her, but the father never complied, and the child continued living with him from age three onward. The father's appeals against the custody order were dismissed by the District Judge and the Madras High Court, bringing the matter to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court personally interacted with the child, who by then was over 12 years old, and found he flatly refused to go with his mother or even speak to her. The Court also asked a senior counsel, Ms. V. Mohana, to counsel the family; her report showed the child gradually became willing to sit with his mother, meet her monthly at a public place, and speak with her by phone, though he remained unwilling to live with her or visit court. Emphasizing that the child's welfare is the paramount consideration in custody matters and that he was old enough to have a meaningful say, the Court declined to transfer custody to the mother but modified the order to secure her visitation and phone-call rights, with further mediation support available.

Lesson Learnt

In custody disputes, once a child is old enough to express a genuine, considered preference, courts give real weight to that preference and the child's welfare over strict enforcement of an earlier custody order, and courts may use structured mediation and counselling to rebuild a estranged parent-child relationship rather than forcing an abrupt custody transfer.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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