HC: Grandparents cannot be denied access to child
Says it won’t be right just because they ill-treated daughter-in-law
Just because the in-laws did not treat a woman well, does not give her the right to deny them (the grandparents) access to her child, ruled the Bombay High Court recently. The HC accordingly ordered a woman to let her son meet his grandparents.
A bench of Justices Shahrukh Kathawalla and Burgess Colabawalla has warned Mumbai-based Fatima Khan (name changed) to allow her in-laws to meet their grandchild and if she fails to do so then she will have to pay Rs5,000 cost.
The bench was dealing with a petition filed by Khan challenging the orders of the Family Court, Bandra, which ordered her to allow her in-laws to meet her son (their grandchild).
Khan, who had married Ajay Shah (name changed) in 2008 had given birth to their son in 2010. The son was born two months after Ajay’s death. Since then, Khan had disallowed Ajay’s parents to meet the child.
According to Khan, she was ill-treated by Ajay’s parents when she lived with them for a brief spell. And accordingly, she was not willing to let them meet her son. She also alleged that Ajay’s parents have threatened her that they would take the child away from her.
Having considered the submissions, Justice Kathawalla said, “The reason given by Khan that she was not treated well by her in-laws cannot be a ground to deprive access of her son to his grandparents.” “If her son has not met his grandparents till date it is Khan, who is responsible for the same. Despite the June 2014 orders of the Family Court, she has not allowed the grandparents of her son to meet him till date. She cannot be allowed to take advantage of her own wrong,” Justice Kathawalla held.
The bench further said Khan’s contention her inlaws have threatened to take away the child is baseless.