Techie Atul Subhash suicide: Supreme Court allows his wife to have custody of minor son

The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the wife of Bengaluru techie Atul Subhash, who died by suicide last month allegedly due to harassment by his wife and in-laws, to have the custody of their four-year-old son.

After interacting with the minor through video conferencing, a Bench of Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma refused to hand over the child to Atul’s mother who had sought the custody of her grandson.

The Bench had on January 7 said petitioner Anju Devi—the grandmother—was a “stranger to the child” and that the case can’t be decided on the basis of a media trial.

Monday’s order came after the Bench directed Atul’s estranged wife Nikita Singhania to produce their minor son before it through video conferencing. “This is a habeas corpus petition. We want to see the child,” it told Singhania’s counsel who said he would produce the child within 30 minutes.

The live casting of the proceedings was stopped when the child was produced before the Bench through video conferencing and the judges interacted with him.

Atul and Nikita, who got married in 2019, had a son born in 2020. She left the matrimonial home in 2021 and filed several cases against Atul and his family members in 2022.

The 34-year-old software engineer, who died by suicide in Bengaluru on December 9, left a 24-page suicide note and an 80-minute video in which he accused his estranged wife and her family of slapping nine cases on him and his family to extort money from them.

On a complaint lodged by Atul’s brother, Nikita was arrested from Gurugram, Haryana, on December 15, 2024, while her mother and brother were arrested from Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, the same day. They have been booked under Sections 108 (abetment of suicide) and certain other provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.

A Bengaluru court on January 4 granted bail to Nikita, her mother Nisha Singhania and brother Anurag Singhania in the case.

In her petition, Atul’s mother had sought to highlight the fact that the child’s biological father and natural guardian was no more and his biological mother Nikita Singhania and maternal grandmother – both were facing criminal cases and had been arrested.

Alleging that the minor was in illegal custody of some unknown persons and she feared for the life and liberty of her grandson, she wanted the top court to order the authorities to produce the child.