Supreme Court grants custody of COVID orphaned child to paternal grandparents over maternal aunt

The Supreme Court on Thursday said that paternal grandparents are more eligible for grandchild's custody as compared to the child's maternal aunt since the grandparents would be more attached to the grandchild. [Swaminathan Kunchu Acharya vs State of Gujarat and ors]..A bench of Justices MR Shah and Aniruddha Bose, therefore, quashed the custody granted to a maternal aunt after observing that income lesser income of the grandparents cannot be the sole criterion to deny the rights of grandparents, who are more attached to the child. "In our society still the paternal grandparents would always take better care of their grandson. One should not doubt the capacity and/or ability of the paternal grandparents to take care of their grandson. It is said that the grandparents love the interest rather than the principle. Emotionally also the grandparents will always take care better care of their grandson. Grand Parents are more attached emotionally with grandchildren," the order said. The Court while granting custody to the paternal grandparents, urged both parties to leave aside their bitterness. .Maternal aunt can be attached to the child but paternal is paternal.Supreme Court .The matter involved the guardianship of a six-year-old boy whose parents had passed away after being infected by COVID-19. Relatives from the paternal side had taken the kid with them for the mother's last rites and kept him in their custody since.The Gujarat High Court had granted to the maternal side custody after noting that the aunt had a Central government job while the grandparents survived on pension.The Supreme Court today set aside the Gujarat High Court decision."Income and/or the age and/or the bigger family cannot be the sole criteria to tilt the balance and not to give the custody of the grandson to the paternal grandparents. At the cost of repetition, it is observed that neither the High Court has observed anything against the appellant or the paternal grandparents that they have not taken proper care of the minor grandson while interim custody of the corpus was them and/or they acted detrimental to the interest of the minor," the apex court observed. The top court, however, clarified that the reasons given by the High Court towards granting custody to the maternal aunt were not irrelavant, but germane. "We are of the opinion that if the balance is to be struck between the paternal grandparents and the maternal aunt, for the reasons stated above, the balance would certainly tilt in favour of the paternal grandparents. However, we may not be misunderstood that the maternal aunt may not take proper care of the minor son of her deceased sister," the order made clear. .Advocate DN Ray represented the paternal grandfather of the child while advocate Rauf Rahim appeared on behalf of the maternal aunt. [Read Order]