‘Parents Can't Be Guest In Child's Life; Visitation Rights Shouldn't Be Limited To Few Hours, Must Encourage Overnight Custody To Each Parent': Tripura HC

“This Court strongly believes that a parent cannot be a guest in their child's life. If visitation rights only are granted for limited hours, it may not be sufficient for the child to have a comfortable time with the father or mother, whoever may be the case,” the Tripura High Court observed recently as it stressed that overnight custody must be encouraged in custody matters. In this regard, the Court further opined that even if the custody is given to one parent, the other parent must have sufficient visitation rights to ensure that the child keeps in touch with the other parent and does not lose social, physical and psychological contact with any one of the two parents. In cases like the present one where the parents are in two different places far away from each other, effort should be made to give maximum visitation rights to the parent who is denied custody,” the Court further added as it stressed that in addition to "visitation rights", "contact rights" are also important for the development of the child. Observing thus, turning to the facts of the case, the Court disposed of the petition by modifying the lower court’s order, by granting custody of the child to both the parents in view of the following directions: Monday, Thursday and Friday will be with the father since the child is attending school including night stay Saturday after school and Sunday, the custody will be with the mother since the mother is staying at Agartala at her parental home.