Chennai: Being denied child’s custody can be extremely painful and heartbreaking for parents, more so for mothers.
A woman from Ooty found it out the hard way recently.
In her case, though, she has to shoulder some of the blame.
The woman admitted to sending “nude and semi-nude photographs” to another man and having “late-night calls and video calls” with him before she separated from her husband.
Citing her conduct, a Madras High Court bench of Justices PT Asha and N Mala held that the children, aged seven and nine, were of “impressionable age” and their mother’s company could be detrimental to their welfare, HT reported.
“The minors in question are at an impressionable age and if their custody is handed over to the appellant mother, considering her admitted conduct, they would grow up without understanding the difference between what is morally and ethically correct,” the high court said.
The bench also cited literature, including poetry by Sufi poet Rumi and Lebanese-American author Khalil Gibran, to state that a mother’s love for her child must be the purest and most exalting, her stature was supposed to be greater than God’s. But, in the present case, the woman had certainly failed at displaying the same.
“Unfortunately, the appellant before us has failed to remember her duty and status as a mother and that it is the mother who inculcates good behaviour to the children right from the time she breastfeeds her child,” the high court ruled as it upheld an order of a family court that had denied the woman custody of her two children.
The couple got married on March 23, 2015, under Hindu rites, and had two children.
The husband told the court that in February 2023, he discovered a text to another man expressing her love to him. He also found nude and semi-nude pictures on her phone that she had shared with other men and that she had made late-night video calls to several people.
He dropped his wife at her parents’ home six days later, but the children continued to stay with the father.
The woman later filed a guardian petition seeking custody of the children, which the family court at Udhagamandalam dismissed on August 29, 2025. She then appealed to the Madras High Court.
In her submission to the high court, the woman said she was “educated” and of “sterling character”, and that a misunderstanding with her husband had led to them living separately. She told the court that she hadn’t seen her children for six months, and urged the bench to grant her custody of the children as they needed maternal care.
Noting that the family court had examined the woman as a witness, and she had admitted the fact about her pictures, the high court said that “welfare” under laws such as the Guardians and Wards Act and the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act meant courts must consider the child’s physical comfort, health and education, and his or her “moral and religious welfare.”
In matters of custody, the relevant legal test is not whether a parent is “unfit”, but the “positive test” of whether granting custody would actually serve the child’s “welfare,” the high court said, dismissing the woman’s appeal.
