Mother Seeks Custody and UK Relocation of Two Children While Father Faces POCSO Prosecution; Supreme Court Permits Children to Move With Mother
Mother Working at UK University Allowed to Take Children Abroad; Supreme Court Says Foreign Relocation Does Not Mean Loss of Indian Cultural Values
Facts
The case concerns a prolonged custody dispute between Debarati Bhunia Chakraborty and Suman Sankar Bhunia over their two children—SSB, approximately 13 years old, and DW, approximately seven years old. The Supreme Court described the children as facing the “disastrous consequences of parental alienation” arising from bitter matrimonial conflict.
The parties married in September 2011. Their son was born in 2013. In 2018, while four months pregnant, the mother left the matrimonial home, alleging physical assault, and subsequently regained custody of the son. Their daughter was born in January 2019 and had always remained with the mother.
The mother, an academic holding a Ph.D. in Engineering, worked at different institutions including IIT Jodhpur, VIT University and later in Bengaluru. She eventually secured employment as a lecturer at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom, earning approximately ₹3 lakh per month. The father was stated to be working as a part-time lecturer in West Bengal earning approximately ₹17,000 per month.
The Family Court nevertheless granted the father sole custody of both children on 1 July 2024. The Delhi High Court affirmed that decision on 23 January 2026 and rejected the mother’s request to relocate the children to the UK.
POCSO Proceedings Against the Father
During the custody litigation, the son began displaying aggressive behaviour and was taken to NIMHANS, Bengaluru in October 2023.
During his interaction there, he made disclosures indicating alleged past sexual abuse by his father. A police complaint followed, resulting in registration of an FIR under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. A chargesheet was subsequently filed against the father.
The father challenged those proceedings before the Calcutta High Court, where his quashing petition remained pending.
Importantly, the Supreme Court was not deciding whether the POCSO allegations were true. The criminal proceedings remained pending and were directed to be decided independently.
Proceedings Before the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court personally interacted with the parents and children in February 2026.
The son was emphatic that he did not wish to remain with his father. The Court recorded that his body language exhibited a “morbid sense of fear” even at the thought of being with the father. It consequently stayed the Family Court and High Court custody orders.
The Court later attempted to facilitate the children’s relationship with their father by arranging supervised visitation during May and June 2026.
The counsellors’ reports showed persistent reluctance. Both children avoided interaction with their father, attempted to leave, and asked to return home. The daughter displayed fear and emotional distress, while both children expressed a preference to remain with their mother.
Mother’s Arguments
The mother argued that she had been the children’s primary caregiver for several years. The son had lived with her since September 2018, while the daughter had remained with her since birth.
Her frequent changes of employment, she submitted, were not evidence of instability but reflected her efforts to secure suitable employment and provide financial security to the children.
She relied heavily upon the children’s expressed wishes and the counsellors’ reports. Forcing the son into the father’s custody despite his intense reluctance and existing psychological difficulties, she argued, could seriously harm his mental well-being.
On relocation, she argued that her employment at the University of Hull offered substantially greater financial security and educational opportunities and that she had made arrangements for the children’s schooling and upbringing in the UK.
Father’s Arguments
The father characterised the case as one of parental alienation, alleging that the mother had systematically poisoned the children’s minds against him.
He argued that the son’s refusal even to see him demonstrated the extent of that alienation. He further contended that relocation abroad would distance the children permanently from him and potentially disconnect them from their Bengali cultural background.
He also challenged the genuineness of the POCSO allegations, describing them as retaliatory and relying upon the pending quashing proceedings. He argued that the mere filing of a chargesheet should not automatically deprive him of custody rights.
Analysis of the Law
1. Child Welfare Overrides Competing Parental Claims
The Supreme Court reiterated that the best interest and welfare of the child is the primary consideration in custody adjudication.
It relied upon the principles contained in Section 3 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, including:
- the child’s right to participate and be heard;
- best interest of the child;
- safety from harm, abuse and maltreatment; and
- non-waiver of children’s rights.
Accordingly, custody could not be approached simply as a contest over which parent had a superior legal claim.
2. Mother’s Career Mobility Was Wrongly Branded a “Nomadic Life”
One of the strongest observations concerns working parents, particularly the mother.
The lower courts had relied upon her repeated changes of employment between 2021 and 2023 to characterise her lifestyle as “nomadic.”
The Supreme Court categorically rejected this description as “absolutely unjustified and far removed from reality.” It found that after leaving the matrimonial home, the mother was attempting to establish herself professionally and obtain respectable, well-paying employment capable of securing the children’s future.
Her career progression therefore weighed in her favour, rather than against her, in the custody assessment.
3. High Court Should Not Have Commented on Pending POCSO Case
The Delhi High Court had expressed doubts regarding the sexual-abuse allegations and characterised them as apparently motivated and a counterblast to the father’s proceedings.
The Supreme Court strongly disapproved.
It noted that the FIR followed a disclosure made by the child to a psychiatrist at NIMHANS and that a chargesheet had subsequently been filed after investigation. Whether those allegations were ultimately established was a matter for the competent criminal court.
The Supreme Court held that the High Court’s observations were “out of place, uncalled for and premature” and ordered them expunged so that they would not prejudice the pending criminal proceedings.
4. Father Facing POCSO Prosecution Could Not Presently Receive Custody
This is the strongest operative custody finding.
The Supreme Court held that once a chargesheet had been filed against the father for a POCSO offence, handing over custody of the child to him would presently be “totally unwarranted and unjustified.”
It further observed that while the prosecution remained pending, giving the father custody could compromise the son’s ability to depose freely and fairly in the criminal proceedings.
The Court even clarified that if the father later succeeded in having the POCSO proceedings quashed, that outcome by itself would not erase the circumstances in which the child’s disclosure had originally been made or render the child’s apprehensions irrelevant to future welfare assessment.
5. Relocation Abroad Does Not Automatically Destroy Cultural Identity
The father’s contention that moving to the UK would cause the children to lose their Bengali culture and values was rejected.
The Court said there could be no presumption that merely relocating to another country would cause children to lose their cultural roots. Their mother herself came from a Bengali family and could reasonably be expected to preserve those traditions.
Court’s Reasoning
The Court considered the cumulative picture rather than any single circumstance.
The children had remained substantially under the mother’s care for years. They were settled academically. Their interactions with the Supreme Court and professional counsellors demonstrated serious reluctance toward the father. A POCSO prosecution based on the son’s disclosure remained pending. The mother had meanwhile obtained stable and substantially better-paid employment in the United Kingdom.
The Court also rejected reliance upon the pension of the paternal grandparents to strengthen the father’s financial position, observing that meeting the children’s educational and other needs is primarily the parents’ responsibility.
The Supreme Court ultimately considered that preventing the children from relocating with their mother would further aggravate the parental alienation and instability they had already endured through more than seven years of litigation.
Conclusion
The Supreme Court did not finally dispose of the custody appeals. They are to be heard in January 2027.
For the present, however, it:
- made absolute the stay on the Family Court and Delhi High Court orders granting sole custody to the father;
- permitted the mother to take both children to the United Kingdom and admit them to a good school there;
- directed her to place schooling details on record within six weeks;
- required her to undertake to produce the children whenever directed by a competent court; and
- directed that the father’s POCSO quashing petition be decided independently, uninfluenced by observations made either by the Delhi High Court or the Supreme Court in the custody proceedings.
This is therefore an interim custody and relocation order, not the final adjudication of the parties’ permanent custody rights.
Case: Debarati Bhunia Chakraborty v. Suman Sankar Bhunia
Court: Supreme Court of India
Citation: 2026 INSC 1043
Case Nos.: Civil Appeal Nos. 12774 & 12775 of 2026
Judges: Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta
Date: 23 September 2026
Result: Father’s sole-custody orders stayed; mother presently permitted to relocate both children to the United Kingdom; final appeals listed for January 2027.
