India, July 23 -- The Bombay high court on Monday struck down a 2023 family court order directing a woman from Bidar, Karnataka to hand over the custody of her 9-year-old son to her estranged husband. A single-judge bench of justice Shailesh P Brahme noted that under Muslim personal law, the father was entitled to custody after a child turned seven, but the court held that the boy's welfare was most important and he would not be able to thrive in an environment where his own father felt like a stranger.

The couple had gotten married in 2010, and had a child in 2015. However, by June 2020, the woman alleged that her husband was ill treating her and left him to live with her parents in Bihar. A year later the husband approached the Nilanga...