1 The appellants, who are original respondents in Civil Misc. Application No. 05 of 2022, have challenged the order dated 16.08.2022, passed by the learned District Judge-2, Newasa, District Ahmednagar, (hereinafter referred to as “the learned trial Court”) in the aforesaid application whereby custody of present appellant no.4-Arohi is directed to be given to present Respondent i.e. original applicant.

2 The background facts are as under:

Appellant no.1 and Respondent are husband and wife, whereas, appellant no.4 is their daughter, presently aged about two and half years. Appellants no.2 and 3 are the parents of appellant no.1 and in-laws of Respondent-wife.

3 According to the Respondent-wife, she gave birth to Arohi on 20.08.2020. Since it was a female child, appellants no.1 to 3 started harassing her on getting dejected. They were also demanding amount of Rs.7 lakhs for construction of their house and ultimately on 13.12.2021, they drove the Respondent out of {3} their house by snatching Arohi from her. The Respondent-wife, therefore, fled application under Section 97 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for getting custody of Arohi, but the same was rejected by the concerned Judicial Magistrate, First Class, Newasa. Further, the Criminal Revision Application arising out of said rejection, fled by the respondent-wife, also got dismissed. Thereafter, Respondent-wife was constrained to fle aforesaid application, being Civil Misc. Application No. 05 of 2022 for custody of Arohi.

4 Appellants No.1 to 3 have strongly resisted the application on the ground that appellant no.1, being father and natural guardian of Arohi, is entitled for custody of Arohi. Moreover, appellant no.3 i.e. grand mother of Arohi is also capable of taking care of her. According to them, they can maintain Arohi properly since they are residing at the central place of the village having all amenities. The learned trial Court, considering the evidence and material on record, allowed the application of Respondent-wife and directed appellants no.1 to 3 to hand over custody of Arohi to Respondent-mother. However, visitation right for the present appellants no.1 to 3 was given once in a month i.e.on fourth Sunday.

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5 Learned Counsel for the appellants vehemently argued that Respondent-wife is unable to maintain herself since she is maintained by her father. He pointed out that appellant no.3, who is grand-mother of Arohi, is taking every care of her and the trial Court has ignored the said fact and did not consider welfare of the child. He especially pointed out that the learned Judicial Magistrate, First Class, Newasa, had also rejected the application fled by Respondent-wife whereby search warrant in respect of Arohi issued asked for getting her custody. According to him, the Criminal Revision Application, fled by Respondent-mother against that rejection, has also been dismissed. As such, he prayed for setting aside the impugned order.

6 On the contrary, learned Counsel for the Respondent- wife has strongly opposed the submissions and claimed that appellant no.1-husband is doing job and, therefore, he is unable to take proper care of Arohi. Moreover, his parents, being old-aged persons, are also unable to take proper care of Arohi. He strongly submitted that there are so many judgments passed by this Court as well as by the Hon’ble Apex Court wherein custody of a minor child up to the age of fve years, is held to be given to the mother {5} irrespective of fnancial position of the parties. He placed reliance on following three judgments:

01 Pushpa Singth Vs. Inderjit Singh, 1990 (Supp) SCC 53;

02 Smt Surinder Kaur Sandhu Vs. Harbax Singh Sandhu and another, AIR 1984 SC 1224; and

03 Ravindra s/o Prakash Kharat Vs. Kalpana w/o Ravindra Kharat (F.A. No. 1272 of 2022, decided by this Court on 05.07.2022).

7 Heard rival submissions and perused the entire documents on record. Since the appellants have produced on record pleadings in Civil Misc. Application No. 05 o