Court order not needed to record stepfather as legal guardian: HC

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court has ruled that no court order is needed to record a stepfather as a legal guardian for the issuance of passport.

The HC bench of justice RK Jain said until and unless the capacity of the stepfather, acting as a legal guardian, is challenged by the biological father -- especially in a case where the custody is legally handed over to the mother -- court’s interference was not required.

The order came on the petition of a Panipat resident, who had challenged the decision of passport authorities of not issuing him passport in the name of his stepfather.

The passport authorities had argued that without court’s order name of the stepfather cannot be mentioned in the passport even on re-marriage after divorce, because the relationship of the child to his biological parents subsists even after parents’ divorce.

The petitioner argued that he was looked after by his stepfather since the age of seven. He had been consistently recorded in various government records as his stepfather’s son and his elder sister’s passport, too, carried the stepfather’s name.

While overruling the passport authorities’ order, the HC bench held: “The stepfather of the petitioner is his legal guardian for all intents and purposes for which there is no need to obtain an order from the court.”