Man ordered to handover grandson to son-in-law

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has ordered a 63-year-old man to hand over custody of his two-and-a-half year old grandson to his son-in-law. The order was passed in the petition filed by the son-in-law alleging that his father-in-law took away his son during his wife’s funeral.

A division bench of Justice Indrajit Mahanty and Justice A.M. Badar was hearing the petition filed by Gajendra Rathod through his lawyer Khush Khandelwal. Mr Rathod and Varsha Subhash Pawar had got married in November 2013, after which, they had been staying at Bhayandar. The petition stated that in November 2016, the couple was blessed with a baby boy. Varsha was working in the LIC of India office at Bhayandar. In December 2018, Varsha had left home and was headed to her Borivali branch office for some work when she met with a train accident and died.

The birth and death certificates were submitted along with the petition. According to the petition, on December 25, 2018, on the day of Varsha’s funeral, Varsha and Mr Rathod’s son was present at the cremation ground with all the family members to perform the last rites when Mr Rathod’s father-in-law Subhash Pawar took away the child. After the funeral, Mr Rathod came to know that his father-in-law had taken away his minor son.

Mr Rathod contacted Mr Pawar and asked him to hand over his son’s custody. However, Mr Pawar refused to hand over the child’s custody to Mr Rathod, implicating him in a false case.

After the police intervened, Mr Pawar submitted before the court that his daughter used to keep her son with them while she was working with LIC. Every morning, the child would be dropped by Mr Pawar and picked up every evening.

Eventually, the court held that the petitioner Mr Rathod was the lawful guardian of the child under section 6 of the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act 1956.