1. The petitioner husband has challenged the order of the Judge, Family Court No.5, Mumbai dated 31st March, 2011 modifying the order of the access of the 3 children of the petitioner by which the learned Judge has cancelled the access of the petitioner to the 2 minor daughters and continued the access of the petitioner to his minor son.

2. The parties have had a very acrimonious dispute. In fact, the application upon which the impugned order is passed is Exhibit 203 showing the number of applications taken out by both the parties in the Family Court litigation.

3. The daughters of the petitioner have been stated to be 16 and 15 years of age in March, 2011. There are, therefore, almost nearing the age of majority at present. In fact, their ages were shown to be 16 and 15 years even in October, 2010 when in another application the age came to be observed.

4. The learned Judge has concluded that in view of the uninfluenciable age of the 2 daughters, they are capable of taking their own decision independently on their own and since they were reluctant to meet their father she has concluded that there is no point in continuing the order of access passed on 14.10.2009 and modified that access by cancelling it.

5. She has also observed that the son is 9 years old at an influenciable age and, therefore, continued that access. In access to the son has been considered by this Court earlier in which an SLP came to be filed in which also that access has been confirmed and parties have been directed to the Child Counsellor in that regard, incidentally without the 2 daughters.

6. The father has challenged the part of the impugned order refusing access to his daughters. It is contended on behalf of the father that under the law the time limit during which access must be granted of 18 years and the order of the learned Judge does not abide that time limit.

7. True it is that 18 years is considered in law as a right age up to which a person continues to be called a child. Children are little people who have big rights. He/she is, therefore, required to be both protected and empowered with regard to the access that he/she has to his parents. However in a given case the welfare of the child may require he/she not being given any access to one or both of his parents. No hard and fast rule can be laid down except the prime rule that all children need a love and affection, care and upbringing of both their parents and the parental responsibility extends to each of the parents granting the other opportunity to do so.

8. It may also be mentioned that it is not the right of the parents that are to be determined in an application for custody or access but the right of the child to have such access. If however a child for any reason through his misfortune or his misconduct brings himself or herself in a situation in which he/she denies to himself or herself such access or creates a situation in which the access would have to be denied to him, those aspects would be in the discretion of the Court to be used in the interest and welfare of the child alone. It is, therefore, that the age of access may be flexibly used upto a point.

9. It is within this ambit that the access of the petitioner to his daughters as against his access to his son would have to be viewed. The petitioner himself accepted such a position, albeit not for a permanent period, even earlier in the earlier litigations even before this Court.

10. When the mother of the children, the respondent herein, denied the petitioner access to all her children and the petitioner claimed the access, he initially claimed it in respect of his son before this Court also. That was in the best sagacity and wisdom of the petitioner at that time. Both the petitioner as well as the Court and its infrastructure would be better able to grant the petitioner the access by repairing any damage to the relationship that may have been caused upon the petitioner concentrating on the access to his son which