The Supreme Court has permitted a mother to take her two children to the United Kingdom and enrol them in school there while their custody appeals remain pending. The Court said the children’s welfare and safety must guide the decision, particularly when their father is facing prosecution under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act).

The bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta continued the stay on earlier orders that had granted the father sole custody and barred the children’s relocation abroad. The Supreme Court will hear the appeals again in January 2027.

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The parents separated in 2018. Their son, now about 13, has lived with the mother since September of that year, while their daughter, now about seven, has been in her care since birth.

The mother, an academic, took jobs in different cities before securing a lecturer’s position at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom. She sought permission to relocate with the children, but the Family Court refused. In July 2024, the Family Court declared the father their sole custodian. The Delhi High Court upheld that decision in January 2026 and rejected the mother’s request to take the children abroad.

The High Court considered the children’s best interests, the need to keep the siblings together and concerns about their relationship with the father. It also treated the mother’s repeated job changes and moves as relevant to the custody decision. She challenged its ruling before the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court disagreed with the lower courts’ description of the mother’s career moves as a “nomadic life”. After leaving the matrimonial home, she had sought employment that would allow her to support herself and the children, the Bench observed. Treating those efforts as a reason to deny her custody was unjustified.

The Court also considered the parents’ financial circumstances. The order records that the mother’s UK job paid approximately ₹3 lakh per month, while the father, a part-time lecturer, earned ₹17,000 per month. The Bench said the pension received by the father’s parents could not be treated as a substitute for a parent’s responsibility to meet the children’s needs.

The father had argued that a move abroad could distance the children from their Bengali cultural roots. The Court rejected any presumption that relocation to another country would, by itself, cause them to lose those ties.

A significant issue before the Court was a POCSO case against the father. According to the order, the son made a disclosure indicating past sexual abuse while being seen at NIMHANS, Bengaluru, in 2023. An FIR was subsequently registered, and police filed a chargesheet. The father has challenged the criminal proceedings in a petition pending before the Calcutta High Court.

The Supreme Court stressed the distinction between considering the children’s safety in a custody case and deciding the father’s criminal liability. It found that the Delhi High Court had gone too far by describing the allegations as apparently motivated and a counterblast to the custody proceedings. Those observations were premature, the Bench held. It expunged them and directed that they must not influence proceedings arising from the FIR.

Referring to the child’s right to be heard, best interests and safety, the Supreme Court said it would be unwarranted to place the children in the father’s custody while he faces prosecution on these allegations. The Bench also expressed concern that placing the son in his custody could affect the child’s ability to give a free account in the criminal proceedings. These are findings for the present custody dispute; the criminal allegations remain to be adjudicated separately.

The mother told the Court that she had an assurance of school admission for the children in the UK and would personally look after them. She also undertook to bring them before a court when required.

The Supreme Court permitted her “for the present” to take the children to the UK and admit them to a good school. She must file an affidavit giving their schooling details within six weeks of the order and furnish an undertaking to produce them whenever directed by the Supreme Court or another court.

The Bench directed the Calcutta High Court to decide the father’s petition to quash the POCSO proceedings independently, without being influenced by observations in either the Delhi High Court judgment or the Supreme Court’s order. 

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