Women advocates are successful mothers: HC

Saurabh Malik

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 10

Women advocates are successful mothers, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has asserted. Justice Augustine George Masih of the High Court also made it clear that labelling them as careless was utterly unacceptable and any attempts to describe them as incapable of taking care of the child was an imaginary tale woven by a contaminated mind.

Women lawyers are not only successful in their professional endeavours but have also proved to be bold, brave and successful mothers. The plea of the petitioners, therefore, with regard to the inability of the mother to look after the welfare of the child because she is an advocate by profession is unacceptable.Rs— Justice Augustine George Masih

Justice Masih was hearing a petition filed by the paternal grandparents of a three-year-old. Among other things, the grandparents claimed they had been taking care of the minor, as both advocate-parents remained busy with their practice.

Referring to their stand that the parents, being advocates, were incapable of taking care of the child and his welfare, Justice Masih described the same as “fiction of a polluted mind” where a working woman was looked down upon as a careless and carefree person ignoring the fact that she also was the child’s mother.

Branding women lawyers as irresponsible class was unacceptable. As such, the welfare of the child, which includes moral and ethical values, was least expected to be protected and secured by such grandparents having a narrow outlook towards life and society.

“Women lawyers are not only successful in their professional endeavours but have also proved to be bold, brave and successful mothers. The plea of the petitioners, therefore, with regard to the inability of the mother to look after the welfare of the child because she is an advocate by profession is unacceptable,” Justice Masih added.

In his detailed order, Justice Masih referred to the observations made by an HC Division Bench that the primary and dominant question before the court was the welfare of the child in a case of minor’s custody. It could not be measured by money or by physical comfort alone, “which probably appears to be a consideration on the part of the petitioners, overlooking the factum of the love and affection and the natural affinity of the parents to a child”.

Justice Masih added that the court found that the effort on the part of the petitioners in connivance with the respondent-father was to delay the proceedings in the petition preferred by the respondent-mother, who was making all efforts to get the custody of the child, who has been separated from her.

Before parting with the order, Justice Masih directed the trial court to make an endeavour to complete the pending proceedings within three months from the next date of hearing before it.