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 and, therefore, while deciding a custody matter, a court is to very careful and cautious to decide the same without any biases and prejudices in finding out the best welfare of the child," justice Satapathy said in an order dated October 23 and made public on Friday. Upholding the lower court's order, the high court found that the child had been living with his maternal grandparents for nearly 11 years and was "deeply attached" to them. Justice Satapathy noted that the boy had expressed a clear preference not to live with his father before the family court . Denying the father's appeal, the court however allowed the petitioner to take his son on short vacations with advance notice to the grandparents....