LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has held that the lower court while granting interim custody cannot impose unwarranted restrictions on the ordinary life and liberties of the mother and the minor.
The court remarked that under the law, the matter of interim or permanent custody, guardianship of a minor is to be adjudicated finally by the guardian court.
The court passed this order in a petition of Mst Misbah Bibi challenging the decision of a sessions court restraining her from removing the minor from its territorial jurisdiction except on account of health issues.
The court observed that the jurisdiction exercised by the lower courts in matters concerning custody and guardianship of a minor is to be guided by the welfare of the minor and the circumstances of the mother, and cannot be converted into a mechanism for placing unwarranted restraints, the court added.
Such conditions, having no discernible sanction in law, amount to an unwarranted exercise of jurisdiction under the section 491 CrPC and cannot be sustained, the court observed.
The court said the jurisdiction under the section 491 in matters relating to the custody of minors is extraordinary and is to be exercised in cases of real urgency, essentially for regulating interim custody and cannot be so extended and stretched to encroach upon the regular jurisdiction of the guardian court.
The court said that for imposing an indefinite or perpetual restriction on the liberty of the parties merely on apprehension that the minor may be removed permanently from the jurisdiction or taken out of the country cannot lawful basis.
The court said, in the present case, the imposition of a condition restraining the mother from removing the minor from the territorial jurisdiction of the court, cannot be sustained unless such restrictions are shown to have a lawful nexus with the limited purpose.
The court said the custody of the minor was entrusted to the petitioner for being real mother, therefore, the lower court while invoking its limited jurisdiction was not competent to impose restrictions and conditions curtailing the liberty of the mother or the minor, the court added.
The court remarked that the conditions imposed by the lower court are completely alien to the welfare scheme of the child and object of section 491 of CrPC.
The court, therefore, allowed the petition and set aside the conditions imposed by the respondent lower court on the liberties of the mother and the minor.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026