Bhubaneswar, Oct. 26 -- A child is not an inanimate object like a ball in a tennis court to be tossed from one side to another till a point is scored, the Orissa high court observed as it dismissed a man's appeal for the custody of his 11-year-old son, reaffirming that the child's welfare and emotional stability must prevail over competing parental or familial rights in all guardianship cases. A single judge bench of Justice G Satapathy made the remarks while hearing a petition filed by one Ajay Kumar Nanda, who sought to reclaim the custody of his son from the child's maternal grandparents and uncle, with whom he had been living since birth. Nanda's wife had died a week after childbirth in 2014, triggering years of litigation between the two families. "Deciding the custody dispute of the children between their parents and their in-laws is most difficult job inasmuch as a child is not an inanimate object like a ball in tennis court to be tossed from one side to other side till a point is scored," justice Satapathy said in an order dated October 23 and made public on Friday. The court noted that the child lived with his maternal grandparents for 11 years. htc...