Orders under Section 12 of Guardians and Wards Act by Family Courts are appealable under Section 19 of Family Courts Act despite interlocutory label under GW Act, as FC Act overrides with wide independent appellate jurisdiction examining order's adjudicatory impact on vital rights and child welfare.

JUDGMENT :

RAJESH KUMAR, J.

Learned counsel for the opposite party at the outset has made objection regarding maintainability of the present C.M.P. and submitted that in view of the issue involved a first appeal is maintainable and not a C.M.P.

2. In support of his contention he has relied upon judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Vimlendu Kumar Jha Vrs. Minal Bhatnagar passed in Special Leave to Appeal(C) Nos. 28174-28175/2025 dated 09.10.2025, which is quoted hereunder:

Leave granted.

Learned counsel for the appellant as well as learned counsel for the respondent(s) submitted that CM(M) No.2800 of 2024 was filed prior to the pronouncement of the judgment of the full bench of the Delhi High Court in the case of Dr. Geetanjali Aggarwal vs. Dr.Manoj Aggarwal (2024 SCC Online Del 7220}.

On the day this CM(M) NO.2800 of 2014 was filed, there was no bar to file a Writ Petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India inasmuch as such a bar, if any created by the pronouncement of the Full Bench, had not yet come into existence. In the circumstances, the question of maintainability of the Writ Petition filed by the petitioner herein does not arise in the instant case.

Consequently, we set aside the impugned order dated 11.09.2025. We request the High Court to consider CM(M) No.2800 of 2024 on merits and dispose of the same as expeditiously as possible and in accordance with law.

Learned counsel for the appellant submitted that the order dated 30.05.2025 need not be gone into on merits, as the said order pertains to visitation rights during the summer vacation and owing to passage of time, the issue has been rendered infructuous for the present. His submission is placed on record.

The Appeal is disposed of in the aforesaid terms.

Pending application(s), if any, shall stand disposed of.

3. Learned counsel for the opposite party has also relied upon the judgment rendered by the High Court of Delhi in the Dr. Geetanjali Aggarwal Vrs. Dr. Manoj Aggarwal reported in 2024 SCC Online Del 7220, the relevant para nos. 15, 19 to 24, 26, 27, 28, 30 and 34 are quoted hereunder:

15. From the aforesaid submissions of the parties, we find that to decide the question as to whether an order passed under Section 12 of the GW Act would be appealable under Section 19 of the FC Act, it would be necessary to decided two issues ; the first being as to whether the provisions of Section 19(1) of the FC Act can be read independently of the provisions of the GW Act. Depending upon the answer to this issue, the next issue which is required to be determined would be as to whether, taking into account the nature of the order passed by the learned Family Court under Section12 of the GW Act, the said order, which is as an interlocutory order under the GW Act, has to be tread as an interlocutory order for the purposes of the FC Act as well, thereby rendering it unappealable."

19. From a cumulative reading of Sections 7, 19 and 20 of the FC Act, it clearly emerges that the Act provides for a composite jurisdiction by laying down a complete procedural Code for filing of appeals in respect of orders passed under various enactments dealing with marriage and family affairs. This includes appeals against orders passed under the GW Act. It, thus, becomes evident that the FC Act bestows the Family Courts with multifarious jurisdictions arising out of marriage and family affairs and matters connected therewith, and was clearly intended to consolidate the jurisdictions which were available with different courts/tribunals under the relevant statutes, in one specialised court i.e. the Family Court. It is, for this reason, that while introducing one single appellate provision under the FC Act, a non-obstante clause has been used to avoid the confu