6 Court Perspective towards the Right of Child Custody

1. The doctrinal arc: from the father's proprietary right (the Roman paterfamilias-to-Ain trajectory — Property Law's historical frame, Semester 3) to the welfare principle (the child's right, not the parents'); the best-interest codification; 2. The Supreme Court's custody jurisprudence (the syllabus's prescribed line): - Naryan Prasad Tharu v. Harendra Kumar Chaudhari (NKP 2076, Vol. 4, D.No. 10394) — prescribed from the Court's recent custody rulings (read the report for its facts-and-holding); - Sukum Thapa v. Pitamber Thapa (NKP 2076, Vol. 9, D.No. 10346) — likewise prescribed (the Vol.-9 writ-volume citation signalling the habeas-corpus route — see below); - The same era's companion ruling, Harikrishna Subedi v. Shrijaya Karki (NKP 2076, No. 11, D.No. 10391 — the habeas corpus cannot be issued against the mother's holding): the writ route's-and-the welfare lens's illustration (as documented in the FWLD custody study); 3. The method the courts apply: the individualized best-interest exam (the parent's conduct- and-capacity; the child's age-and-attachment; the sibling-together presumption; the stability- and-continuity factor); the child's own voice (the discernment-and-age consultations); the access-not-alienation command (the non-custodial parent's contact protected); the interim- custody-and-return practice in the habeas petitions (the parental abduction cases' dual track: the writ's technicality vs. the welfare's substance — the courts' insistence on deciding the child's placement, not merely the custody-technicality); 4. The critique: the standards' variability despite codification (the…