Bombay High Court

Aurangabad Bench

local family court

domestic violence

in-vitro fertilisation

physical relations

Theset aside a family court ruling, ordering a surgeon to have a second child with his estranged wife. The high court cited the detrimental effect a bitter marriage would have on the mental growth of the couple’s first child.Theof the Bombay High Court also observed that none of the parties were able to cite any precedents, where the court accepted either the wife or the husband’s request to compel a spouse to conceive a child with them.“This court cannot turn a blind eye and appear to be insensitive to the future of the ‘probable child’ which, neither the couple... has considered, nor has been considered by the family court,” justice Ravidra Ghuge observed.The couple married through an arranged marriage set up in 2010 and have a six-year-old son. They have been living separately since 2016. The man lives in Mumbai and the woman in Nanded.The woman, a doctor, had filed the petition in a, seeking directions to allow her to reside with her estranged husband. Her husband had filed for divorce in another family court.The woman had told family court that she would withdraw thecase she had filed against the husband if she was allowed to conceive a second child with him. She had said that she did not want her son to live the “life of a loner”.The Nanded court allowed the wife’s request and ordered the husband to have a second child though. The court also fixed a gynecologist’s appointment for the procedure.The man, however, moved the high court and argued that he wanted to sever ties with the woman, who had accused him of havingwith his own mother. He argued that he could not be compelled to procreate in any form with a woman he did not want to have anything to do with. In an order uploaded last week, the Aurangabad bench allowed the husband’s request and set aside the family court’s order.“To say the least, I find such conclusions to be shocking to the judicial conscience of the court,” the judge said about the lower court’s order.On the wife’s offer not to claim maintenance and bear all the expenses of the child, the court held that the growth of a child is not money centric but family centric. “The growth of a child, both mental and physical, to make a child an able, capable and competent human being with normal predisposition and bereft of mood swings, could only occur in a congenial family structure.” the judge observed.He further held that the wife herself had admitted the condition of their first born - a six year old boy- who felt neglected as no one from the father’s family enquires about him due to the marital discord.“In my view, the growth of such a child who would eventually get knowledge of the circumstances in which he was brought to this earth, would have a devastating effect on his mental growth... People seldom fathom the effect of a stunted mental growth or the mental growth of a child suffering on account of such circumstances. A child may grow to his or her full physical strength and appearance. But if the mental growth of the child suffers due to trauma on account of the circumstances that led to his birth, it would be something which is beyond perception and imagination.” the judge observed.