Consulting therapist doesn’t mean person mentally unsound: HC

NEW DELHI: If a person is consulting a psychotherapist, it doesn’t mean they are mentally unsound, the Delhi high court has said, refusing a husband’s plea seeking custody of daughter from estranged wife.

A bench of justices Vipin Sanghi and P S Teji reminded the husband that consultations like these are a common practice in today’s stressful life.

HC also disposed of a habeas corpus writ petition filed by the mother seeking a direction to her husband to bring before the court her minor daughter, who was allegedly forcibly taken away from her by her in-laws.

The bench, while granting interim custody of the child to her mother, also dismissed the husband’s argument that the woman was not naturally attached to the child as she was born out of surrogacy, and observed that the mother would not have any less love and affection merely because of this factor.

“The child in question is one year old. Though she was born out of surrogacy, as the petitioner suffered two miscarriages earlier, she is nevertheless the biological mother of the child, and the respondent is the biological father,” it noted.