The Madhya Pradesh High Court has granted custody of a four-year-old child to her father, until he remarries or enters into a live-in relationship. [2026 LiveLaw (MP) 408]

Noting that the child's mother (the wife) was residing with another man and does not wish to return to her husband, the bench of Chief Justice Alpesh Y Kogje and Justice Vivek Jain deemed it appropriate to grant custody to the father. However, upon concerns regarding the husband remarrying, the court directed:

"On there being remarriage or having live-in relationship of the petitioner, it would be incumbent for him to handover the possession of corpus RK to corpus SK". 

A petition was filed by a man calling the entire record regarding inquiry into the conduct of police after a missing persons report was filed on February 6, 2026. The petition sought directions to find the petitioner's wife, SK. 

After the court's order of September 25, 2026, the corpus SK and her daughter RK were found and brought before the court. It was reported that SK, along with child RK, was living in Etawah, UP, with another man. The corpus was reported to be 25 years of age, and the child was about 4 and a half years of age. 

The child was born out of wedlock between the petitioner and SK. The court interacted with SK and noted her desire to reside with the other man, claiming matrimonial differences with the petitioner. 

Noting that SK desired to reside with the said other man, the court deemed it appropriate to hand over custody of the child, RK, to the petitioner. The court, however, directed the petitioner to enable SK to have free access to meet the child. The court also directed that the child be sent to SK once every two months for a period of a week. 

Accordingly, the court disposed of the petition. 

For Petitioner: Advocate Baldeo Prasad Patel 

For State: Government Advocate S.S. Chouhan