Custody judgments: Pakistani family law case summaries
Pakistani court judgments on custody, summarised in plain English, newest first. Each gives the issue, what the court held and what it means in practice, and is reviewed by an advocate.
Our guide: Child custody and guardianship in Pakistan
16 judgments
A QR-verifiable CFMS copy did not satisfy the certified-copy rule in a guardian appeal
Sadam Hussain v. Mst. Shahneela and others
Issue: Does a digital copy of a Family Court order downloaded from the court's Case Flow Management System (CFMS), verifiable by QR code,…
Held: No. Rule 22(3) of the Family Court Rules 1965 expressly requires a certified copy, and a CFMS copy does not meet it even though it can be authenticated by QR code. But because the appellate court did not object at…
Art. 199, Constitution of Pakistan 1973r.22(1), Family Courts Rules 1965r.22(3), Family Courts Rules 1965s.25, Guardians and Wards Act 1890
High Court custody relief is provisional; a parental agreement cannot override the child’s welfare
Mst. Farah d/o Mukhtiyar Ahmed Khan v. Province of Sindh and others
Issue: Can the High Court, in a constitutional petition for recovery of a young child, decide custody when the father relies on a…
Held: Only provisionally. Article 199(1)(b)(i) may be used in exceptional cases to protect a minor's immediate welfare, but final custody is for the Guardian Court. Given the girl's tender age, the principles of hizanat and nothing showing the mother unsuitable, provisional…
A child’s preference must be heard, but within the whole welfare inquiry
Kashif Mehmood v. Saadia Fida etc.
Issue: How much weight should a court give a child's own preference in a custody case?
Held: A child capable of forming an intelligent preference must be meaningfully heard, but that preference is weighed with the child's existing care, education, stability and overall welfare rather than treated as a binding or isolated choice. Maternal custody and the…
s.17, Guardians and Wards Act 1890s.25, Guardians and Wards Act 1890
Structured overnight visitation: a practical Sindh High Court model
Aijaz-ur-Rehman v. Mst. Naila and others
Issue: What contact should a father have with a seven-to-eight-year-old daughter in her mother's custody, where the courts below allowed only two three-hour…
Held: Drawing on the eleven conditions in Madiha Younus v. Imran Ahmed (2018 SCMR 1991), so far as the mother agreed, the Court kept custody with the mother but gave the father an overnight stay on the first Saturday of every…
Art. 199, Constitution of Pakistan 1973s.10, Guardians and Wards Act 1890s.25, Guardians and Wards Act 1890s.7, Guardians and Wards Act 1890
A father’s physical custody is not, by itself, illegal detention
Mst. Tania Javed v. Province of Sindh and others
Issue: Can a mother recover her young children from their father through a High Court petition alleging that he is illegally detaining them?
Held: No. The father is the children's admitted father, and his keeping them, in the absence of any court order declaring his custody unlawful, cannot by itself be called illegal detention warranting constitutional relief. Which parent should have custody, considering the…
A child’s ‘consent’ cannot legitimise a child marriage: police must act and the girl is protected
Muhammad Aslam v. Addl. Sessions Judge/Ex-Officio Justice of Peace etc.
Issue: Was a Justice of Peace right to refuse a father's application for a criminal case over his daughter's alleged marriage below 18,…
Held: No. A NADRA child registration certificate gave her date of birth as 1 March 2011, so she was prima facie about fifteen at the Nikah on 18 May 2026, after the Punjab Child Marriage Restraint Act 2026 came into force.…
Art. 199, Constitution of Pakistan 1973s.13, Punjab Child Marriage Restraint Act 2026s.154, Code of Criminal Procedure 1898s.22-A, Code of Criminal Procedure 1898
Children taken by force are returned to the mother pending the Guardian Court
Naseem Bibi v. Addl. Sessions Judge Sheikhupura and four others
Issue: Can a Sessions Judge refuse a mother's section 491 petition only because her children (about 16, 11 and 9) are not of…
Held: No. Section 491 also covers custody that is 'improper', and the remedy is not barred because the Guardian Court is available. The mother came to court at once alleging the father had forcibly taken the children from her on 20…
Art. 199, Constitution of Pakistan 1973s.17, Guardians and Wards Act 1890s.25, Guardians and Wards Act 1890s.491, Code of Criminal Procedure 1898
A 17-year-old who refuses to live with her father cannot be forced back or kept in a shelter through habeas corpus
Muhammad Mustafa v. District Police Officer, etc.
Issue: Can a father use a habeas petition to recover his 17-year-old daughter, who says she wants to live with her maternal aunt…
Held: No. The girl told the Court she feared her stepmother and chose to live with her khala. The Punjab Protection of Women Against Violence Act 2016 can be used only with the aggrieved person's consent (s.15), and proceedings under Part…
s.15, Punjab Protection of Women Against Violence Act 2016s.4, Punjab Destitute and Neglected Children Act 2004s.491, Code of Criminal Procedure 1898
A father who already has the children can still ask to be declared their guardian
Fareha v. Asad Bashir etc.
Issue: Can a father, as natural guardian with physical custody of his four daughters, petition under section 7 of the Guardians and Wards…
Held: Yes. Section 7 speaks of both appointing and declaring a guardian, recognising that a person may already be guardian in law yet seek formal affirmation; section 19(b) limits the court's power but does not bar a natural guardian from applying.…
Art. 199, Constitution of Pakistan 1973s.19, Guardians and Wards Act 1890s.25, Guardians and Wards Act 1890s.7, Guardians and Wards Act 1890
Parents agree a detailed meetings schedule; the court asks Sindh to reform interim custody rules
Mst. Aqsa Abdul Ghaffar v. Irfan Muhammad Saleem and others
Issue: In a wife's petition against decrees for dower, maintenance and dowry, how should the High Court respond when it emerges that the…
Held: The financial claims were settled at the hearing: the claim to gold stayed rejected for lack of evidence, and the husband undertook to pay the balance of the appellate decree (Rs. 162,000 of Rs. 295,500) within a month and future…
Art. 199, Constitution of Pakistan 1973Art. 25, Constitution of Pakistan 1973Art. 35, Constitution of Pakistan 1973s.12, Guardians and Wards Act 1890
No second appeal in family cases, but the High Court can still fix a workable visitation schedule
Shafqat Ali v. Mst. Rimsha (and connected petitions)
Issue: After a Family Court decree and one appeal on Khula, dower, maintenance and dowry, and one guardianship appeal, can the High Court…
Held: Not as a second appeal. The Family Courts Act gives no second appeal and the Guardians and Wards Act allows one, which both sides had used; re-appraising evidence in writ jurisdiction would substitute a second appeal (following 2023 SCMR 1434…
Art. 199, Constitution of Pakistan 1973s.10, Family Courts Act 1964s.47, Guardians and Wards Act 1890
A former aunt by marriage cannot keep a child from the real mother
Mst. Nayyab Abbas v. Additional District Judge, etc.
Issue: Can a woman who raised a child under an 'adoption deed' made in favour of her then husband, the child's uncle, keep…
Held: No. The father had handed the child to the uncle under an 'adoption deed' of 7 November 2020 without the mother's consent, and the deed was in the uncle's favour alone; the uncle, now divorced from the petitioner, conceded the…
Art. 199, Constitution of Pakistan 1973s.17, Guardians and Wards Act 1890s.25, Guardians and Wards Act 1890
A mother’s remarriage does not by itself cost her custody
Nazia Saddique v. Additional District Judge, etc.
Issue: Should a ten-year-old who had always lived with his mother be moved to his father because she remarried and depends financially on…
Held: No. A mother's remarriage may lead to loss of custody, but it is not an absolute rule; the welfare of the child is paramount, and moving a boy who had lived with his mother all his life would likely cause…
Art. 199, Constitution of Pakistan 1973s.17, Guardians and Wards Act 1890s.25, Guardians and Wards Act 1890
Parents who lent a child to relatives can take her back
Nazir Ahmad etc. v. The learned Additional District Judge, Kasur etc.
Issue: Can a maternal uncle and aunt who were given temporary custody of one of twin girls, on condition that they return her…
Held: No. The parents' status as the girl's real parents was admitted, and admitted facts need no proof. However good the care the uncle and aunt provided, adoptive carers are not a substitute for the parents, and the welfare of the…
Art. 199, Constitution of Pakistan 1973s.17, Guardians and Wards Act 1890s.25, Guardians and Wards Act 1890
A child ‘adopted’ at birth goes back to the real mother; the court asks for an adoption law
Erum Shahzadi & another v. Additional District Judge, Sialkot & 4 others
Issue: Can relatives who took a newborn on the day of his birth and registered him as their own son keep him against…
Held: No. Adoption is permitted in Islamic law, but the real parents have a preferential right to custody unless the child's welfare demands otherwise, and there was no justification for this adoption beyond the relatives' wish for a son. No written…
Habeas corpus will not decide custody when the Guardian Court is already seized
Hamna Fahad v. CCPO, Lahore etc.
Issue: Should the High Court return two children to their mother in habeas proceedings after the father allegedly took them from her at…
Held: No. In the precedents the mother relied on, the child was a suckling baby or had been removed by deception from the mother's custody; here both parents had lived with the children in Dubai, and whether the mother left or…
Art. 199, Constitution of Pakistan 1973s.25, Guardians and Wards Act 1890s.7, Guardians and Wards Act 1890