Orders under Section 12 of the Guardians and Wards Act are appealable under Section 19 of the Family Courts Act, as they affect vital rights and welfare of minors.

JUDGMENT :

REKHA PALLI, J

1. This Full Bench has been constituted on the orders of Hon‟ble the Chief Justice, pursuant to the reference order dated 22.10.2021 passed by the learned Division Bench in MAT.APP. (F.C.) 126/2019, of which one of us, namely HMJ Jasmeet Singh was a member. Vide the said order, the learned Division Bench while dealing with the appeal preferred by the mother of the minor child, the respondent in Guardianship Petition No. 05/2018, recorded its reluctance in accepting the view expressed in Colonel Ramesh Pal Singh vs. Sugandhi Aggarwal, MAT.APP.(F.C.) 211/2019, wherein it was held that an order under Section 12 of the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890 (hereinafter “GW Act”) passed during the pendency of proceedings before the Family Court would be an interlocutory order and would consequently, not be appealable under Section 19(1) of the Family Courts Act, 1984 (hereinafter “FC Act”). The Court noticed that a contrary decision regarding the scope of appeal under Section 19(1) of the FC Act had been taken by another Division Bench of this Court in Manish Aggarwal v. Seema Aggarwal, (2012) 192 DLT 714 (DB) and, therefore, opined that the decision in Col Ramesh Pal (supra) was required to be reconsidered by a Larger Bench. It is, in these circumstances, that this Bench has been constituted to consider the correctness of the decision in Col Ramesh Pal (supra).

2. Before dealing with the issue arising for our consideration in the present reference, we may briefly refer to the factual matrix of the appeal, which, as noted hereinabove, has been filed at the instance of the mother of the minor child, assailing the order dated 09.04.2019 passed by the learned Family Court under the GW Act, 1890. This impugned order was passed upon an application being filed by the father of the minor child, with a prayer that the minor child be admitted in one of the three schools near his place, so that instead of being sent to a creche after school hours, the child could be placed in his temporary custody every day during the period when the mother was busy in office.

3. Vide the impugned order, the learned Family Court allowed the application filed by the respondent father and permitted him to pick up the child from the appellant mother‟s house before school every day and then drop and pick her up from school, with a direction to drop her back at the appellant mother‟s home by 6:00 p.m. every day. The learned Family Court further directed that the expenses towards education of the child would be borne by the respondent father and would be adjusted from the maintenance being paid by him.

4. In the appeal preferred under Section 19 (1) of the FC Act, 1984, it is the appellant‟s prayer that since the child was already studying in a reputed nursery school, i.e, Scottish school, the directions issued by the learned Family Court to shift her to a school close to the respondent father‟s residence so as to enable him to have temporary custody of the child, be set aside. While issuing notice in the appeal on 27.04.2019, the learned Division Bench stayed the operation of the impugned order and on 29.04.2019, directed that though during the ongoing academic session, the child would continue to study in the Scottish school; both parties would make joint efforts to get her admitted in some other reputed school for the next academic session. This Court further permitted the respondent father to pick up the child from the residence of the appellant mother at 2 p.m. every Saturday and drop her back at the appellant‟s residence by 6 p.m. on the same day.

5. It is thereafter that the respondent, on 19.10.2019, moved applications being CM No. 7672 of 2021 and CM No. 34542 of 2021 seeking dismissal of the appeal on the ground that the same was not maintainable under Section 19 of the FC Act. In his application, the respondent has contended that since the impugned order dated 09.04.2019 passed by the learned Family Court was an interlocutory order passed un