Gujarat high court denies father custody of child surrendered by mother to orphanage

AHMEDABAD: A 39-year-old man failed to secure custody of his threeyear-old daughter through a habeas corpus petition after his estranged

wife handed over the daughter to an orphanage, from where the child was

given in adoption to a couple not known to the father.

On Monday, the Gujarat high court rejected the habeas corpus petition

saying that the child is not under any illegal confinement and hence the

habeas corpus petition was not maintainable.

The HC said that the child was given in adoption after the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) passed an order declaring her to be

legally free for adoption. The child was handed over to adoptive parents by the orphanage under a court’s order.

Thus, the child is in legal custody of adoptive parents and the man can obtain appropriate legal remedy by challenging the

order by CWC as well as the court’s.

The man and woman involved in the litigation had got married in 2015. They had a daughter in 2016.

The couple separated through a divorce deed in 2017 and the father retained the child’s custody. But later he gave up the

child’s custody in favour of the mother by inking a memorandum of understanding. The man later challenged this arrangement

before various courts but failed.

The father finally filed a habeas corpus petition in May in the HC for the daughter’s custody after he came to know that the

divorced mother had surrendered the child in Matruchhaya Orphanage in Nadiad. He argued that the child’s custody should be

handed over to him because the mother was not willing to keep her.

While the man claimed that his estranged wife was avoiding him to evade the child custody issue, the woman and her father

appeared before the high court and told the court about harassment on part of the man, which led the mother to give up the

child.

On part of the woman, it was submitted that the husband was never interested in keeping the daughter’s custody. At the time

of divorce, he retained the child’s custody, but returned the custody and signed an MoU stating that he would never claim the

custody in future.

On part of the orphanage and the CWC, it was submitted that all due procedure was followed before giving the child in

adoption. Hence, the child’s custody cannot be returned to the biological father in habeas corpus proceedings.

Meanwhile, the HC pulled the petitioner up for seeking DNA test for the child thereby raising doubts on paternity of the child.

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