High Court Of Delhi
USHA GUPTA - Appellant
Versus
SANTOSH KUMAR - Respondent
Decided On : 02/14/1983
( 1 ) THIS revision petition is directed against an order of learned trial court dated 21st October, 1982 whereby the learned trial court declined the application of the petitioner (mother) of the interim custody of her only minor son who is at present in the custody of Sh. Santosh Kumar, elder brother of the deceased father of the minor child.
( 2 ) IT appears that the petitioner, Smt. Usha Gupta was married to one Shri Pushpendra Kumar in February, 1972. Unfortunately Shri Pushpendra Kumar ditd in October, 1974 at Saharanpur due to an unfortunate accident. It was only in December, 1974 that this unfortunate minor son was born to Smt. Usha Gupta, the petitioner.
( 3 ) IT was stated in the application for appointment of guardian that the child was born at Meerut where Smt. Usha Gupta was staying with her mother-in-law and father-in-law. Since Smt. Usha Gupta became widow before the birth of the child, she stayed with her in-laws for sometime and thereafter shifted to Delhi to her parents house. She was very young and she got herself admitted to a Degree course of Bachelor of Teaching with the Kurukshetra University in a town in Haryana. While she was studying for the aforesaid course the child was staying with the maternal grand parents in Delhi and she was visiting Delhi every month regularly to meet the child. When the child reached the age of about 3 years, in February, 1978 he was put into Cathedral Nursery School in New Delhi. The child studied in that school under the care of his mother till December, 1978.
( 4 ) IT was then averred in the petition that on pursuation of her parents and also of her in-laws, she married a gentleman in November, 1978 and left with her husband for Tanzania in January, 1979 and in February, 1979 the child was left in the care of her paternal grand mother at Meerut. The petitioner, Smt. Usha Gupta, came back to India in November, 1979 itself as somehow she could not live with her husband and has since November, 1979 been living with her parents separately from her second husband. Since November, 1979, the petitioner has been knocking at the doors of in-laws for getting back the custody of her minor son. When the efforts of the family did not bear fruit she had to file an application under Section 25 of the Guardians and Wards Act for the custody of her only minor son. This application was filed in August, 1980 at Meerut. The application had to be filed at Meerut because it was there she had left the child with her first mother-in-law i. e. the grand-mother of the child. While the proceedings were pending for custody, Shri Santosh Kumar, the elder brother of the deceased Shri Pushpendra Kumar, filed a suit for injunction at Saharanpur restraining the petitioner (mother) from taking custody of ths child and obtained interim-orders from the Saharanpur Courts for the maintenance of status quo and thus retained the custody of the child.
( 5 ) IT appears, that in view of certain proceedings before the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court transferred all the proceedings to Delhi and now both the application for custody filed by Smt. Usha Gupta and the suit filed by Sh. Santosh Kumar are pending in Delhi. Both the proceedings were pending for number of years without any result and the petitioner Smt. Usha Gupta was forced to file the application for interim custody of her child.
( 6 ) THE learned trial court after talking to the minor aged about 8 years felt that the minor was greatly attached to his uncle Shri Santosh Kumar and his aunt (wife of Shri Santosh Kumar), who have no child of their own and in view of this attachment declined to pass any order for interim custody in favour of the mother. The trial court instead directed that the uncle will bring the child to Delhi at every date of hearing so that the mother will be in a position to see the child at the time of hearing. It is this order which has been impugned before me in revision.
( 7 ) IT will be noticed that though the c
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