The petitioner being real father filed guardianship petition for custody of his minor daughter on the ground that respondent-mother has remarried and,..........

The petitioner being real father filed guardianship petition for custody of his minor daughter on the ground that respondent-mother has remarried and, hence, violated the agreement between the parties upon their dissolution of marriage that minor son will be kept by the petitioner-father while the respondent-mother will retain custody of the minor daughter until she contracts second marriage. Held that the children cannot be treated as commodities and their welfare cannot be compromised by their parents by executing any agreement. Suffice to observe that such agreements are against public policy and hence, not enforceable under the law. This Court is of the view that placing a Sword of Damocles of losing the custody of the child upon remarriage on the respondent is not only illegal but also raises a logical question as why such a condition was not placed on the petitioner himself, disentitling him from keeping the custody of the minor son and seeking the custody of the minor daughter. In this regard, suffice to observe that it is well-settled principle of law that re-marriage of the mother is not a stand-alone ground for depriving her from keeping custody of her minor children. Case reported as Raja Muhammad Owais v. Nazia Jabeen and others (2022 SCMR 2123) is referred. Further held that the right of minor siblings to develop bond of love and ownness among themselves by remaining united and grow up in the companionship has been ignored. While parents may submerge and get themselves subsumed in their lives respectively, it is the minor siblings who have suffered the most by lack of mutual interaction, in the most innocent manner, during the most innocent period of their lives, the playful memories whereof would have been indelibly etched into their past memories to be relished in future. Therefore, this Court considers it obligatory to observe that the learned Judge of the Family Court, while deciding the guardian petition, must in addition to and/or apart from other factors, also evaluate the adverse effects of separating the siblings from each other.