The Lahore High Court (LHC) has ruled that a mother’s remarriage alone cannot serve as a reason to deny her custody of her child, highlighting that the child’s welfare must always take precedence. Justice Syed Ahsan Raza Kazmi, presiding over the Bahawalpur bench, overturned the decisions of both the trial and appellate courts, which had awarded custody of a 10-year-old boy to his father.
The court ordered that Muhammad Rehman Khan be immediately transferred back to his mother’s custody, noting that while traditional legal interpretations may consider a mother’s remarriage as grounds for forfeiting custody, this is not an absolute rule.
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The court emphasized that, in exceptional circumstances, custody could be awarded to a remarried mother if it serves the child’s best interests.
Justice Kazmi stressed that the welfare of the child should be the primary consideration in custody decisions, not parental rights. He referenced the Guardian & Wards Act, 1890, emphasizing that a child’s emotional, psychological, and physical well-being should guide custody matters. The ruling pointed out that the child had lived with his mother his entire life and removing him solely because of her remarriage was both legally and morally inadequate.
The mother had appealed the earlier rulings, arguing that she was the best person to meet her child’s needs, while the father’s legal team contended that her remarriage and financial dependence on her new husband made her unsuitable.
The LHC disagreed, asserting that the lower courts had wrongly focused on these factors to award custody to the father, and emphasized that both courts had overlooked the crucial issue of the child’s well-being.
The case stemmed from the father’s petition under the Guardian & Wards Act, seeking custody after the couple’s separation. The trial court initially granted custody to the father, a decision upheld by the appellate court but later overturned by the LHC.
