Starting with the divorce, which is obviously a very harsh stage of life for both the partners who are involved in it and someday decided to live together forever but unfortunately, sometimes things don’t go well and therefore, the two partners have to get separated after years of living together. In all these nuances of life of both the partners, the ones who are majorly impacted with this decision are their kids.
Yes! The innocents who haven’t done anything wrong but just unexpectedly life gets no more kind to them due to their parents’ “Divorce” decision. The nerve-racking decision becomes more difficult for the parents filing divorce whose children are small and are not mature enough to understand what their parents are going for. Here the question arises that which parent will take the child custody in India with him/her? Can a child choose which parent to live with in India?
How Child Custody in India is decided By the Court?
As the generation has changed and evolved over the past years, so as the mind of the people and the judiciary too. Instead of looking out for the “right of a parent” the custody has been shifted to the “right of a child”. It is more important to look at the child’s basic needs and comfort. The parent who is more capable of looking out for the social, medical, educational and emotional needs of the child will be preferred much and given the custody of a child in India.
Here the earning capacity of a parent doesn’t affect the child custody in India, what matters is the capacity to provide a healthy and safe environment to a child. If a father is an earning figure and a mother being just a housewife then also, it cannot lack mother behind of getting the child custody. Here the court may decide to make the mother a custodial parent if a child is of tender age and give father the other rights and responsibilities for e.g. providing the financial support to the child. At the time child reaches the discernible age, he/she may wish his own custodial parent or with which parent he/she wants to live ahead.
So the answer to the question or a query that can child in India ever choose that which parent to live with is YES! But only after attaining a particular age i.e. 9 years as per the Guardians and Wards Act 1890 (GAWA). Once a child achieves the age of 9 years in India, his/her preference for custody is considered.
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