In a case of child custody, the Supreme Court has reversed the Kerala High Court’s ruling, awarding sole custody of an 8-year-old girl to her mother.

The apex court cited the father’s inability to provide home-cooked food and separation from her younger sibling as reasons for reversing the HC judgment.

The girl during her stay with the father, who works in Singapore and has rented a temporary home in Thiruvananthapuram, did not receive a single home-cooked meal. She was entirely surviving on restaurant food. She also had no companionship except for her father and was separated from her 3-year-old brother, who lives with their mother.

What Supreme Court said?

A bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath, Sanjay Karol, and Sandeep Mehta spoke to the child and found several issues with the existing custody arrangement. 

“The child requires nutritious home-cooked food for her overall well-being, growth and development. Unfortunately, the father is not in a position to provide such nutrition to the child,” Justice Mehta wrote in the judgment.

He also said that “continued consumption of food procured from restaurants/hotels would pose a health hazard, even to a grown-up person, what to talk of a tender-aged child of eight years.”

The Supreme Court order came after the mother had challenged the Kerala High Court ruling.

The HC earlier directed the girl’s estranged parents to share her custody on an alternate 15-day basis every month.

“The fact that the child gets no company whatsoever except for that of the father during the interim custody period of 15 days is an additional factor which weighs heavily against his claim,” the SC said.

The apex court also said that the girl would benefit emotionally, morally, and socially from living with her mother, who works from home.

“The emotional and moral support which the child gets at her mother’s home is manifold than what is being provided by the father during the interim custody period,” the order stated, adding, “The period of 15 days during which the daughter would be with the father would also lead to deprivation of her company to her sibling, the boy child aged three years.”