Mother retain right to child custody despite remarrying: LHC

The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday ruled that a mother remains eligible to retain custody of her children despite her remarriage.

Justice Ahsan Raza Kazmi of the LHC issued the ruling on a review petition filed by Nazia Bibi. 

The court annulled the previous decision that had granted custody of the 10-year-old child to the father after the second marriage of the woman.

The four-page-long ruling noted that the welfare of children should be prioritised in such cases, addign that in typical casess, the children's custody is given to the mother.

Read: LHC rules biological father responsible for supporting children born out of wedlock or rape

It is a common practice that a mother's custody right is revoked if she remarries. However, the judgment clarified that exceptions can be made in rare situations based on the child’s best interests, and he/she should be allowed to live with their mother.

The ruling highlights that because the child has lived with his mother since birth in this case, terminating her custody would lead to negative consequences for the child's personality.

In this paritcular case, the judge maintained that the parents separated in 2016, yet the father filed for custody only in 2022. The father failed to provide a satisfactory explanation for this six-year delay.

Read: "I insisted that my partner had to accept my children," says Madiha, a single mother who was recently married by her son

The decision stated that the father filed a petition for custody as he was expecting to lose a separate child support case. but the trial court decided without considering the important points raised in the case.

The judgment further stated that the custody petition may have been motivated by the father’s anticipation of losing a separate child support case.

It added that the trial court had ruled in his favor without considering several crucial aspects of the case. The LHC therefore declared the trial court’s ruling null and void and granted custody of the child to the mother.