#Welfare Principle

The High Court overturned a family court order awarding custody to a father who had remarried without divorce, abandoned his younger son, and flouted a restitution decree. The father's bigamy and contempt of court orders rendered him unfit; the children's welfare was held paramount, granting custody to the mother with supervised DLSA visitation.

Allahabad HC holds child welfare paramount in habeas corpus custody; grants father custody with structured maternal visitation despite mother's unwillingness.

The High Court set aside a Family Court order denying interim custody of a four-year-old girl to her mother, ruling that Section 6(a) of the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act creates a statutory presumption favouring maternal custody for children under five. Substituting visitation rights for the custody prayer was held to be a perverse exercise of discretion.