Court asks Kumble’s wife to mutually settle daughter’s issue

Bangalore/New Delhi, July 27 The Supreme Court Monday asked India’s former Test cricket player Anil Kumble’s wife Chethana to try to reach an out-of-court settlement with her former husband Kumar V. Jahgirdar on the issue of their daughter’s custody.

A bench of Justice Tarun Chatterjee and Justice R.M. Lodha gave this advice to Chethana Kumble and her former husband Jahgirdar while hearing her lawsuit. Chethana challenged a Bangalore family court’s decision to entertain his plea for the custody of their daughter, now living with her and Kumble. 

The bench asked the two to try to settle the issue of their daughter’s custody through talks and gave them three weeks for the purpose. 

Married earlier to Jahgirdar and also having a daughter with him, Chethana had divorced him in early 1999. 

Within months of the divorce from her first husband, she married Kumble. She also moved the Bangalore Family Court December 1999 for the custody of her 6-year-old daughter left behind with her father. 

Jahgirdar too moved the family court seeking custody of their daughter. The family court subsequently endorsed his plea and allowed him to take custody of the child. 

But on an appeal from Chethana, the Karnataka High Court reversed the family court’s ruling and gave the daughter’s custody to her mother, saying that in her early years, the child’s upkeep and welfare would be taken care of better by a female family member. 

It said as Jahgirdar was living all alone, the child’s interest would be better served in the custody of her mother. 

The apex court too subsequently in 2004, on an appeal by Jahgirdar, endorsed the high court’s ruling, affirming the child’s custody to the mother. 

After Jahgirdar married for the second time 2006, he again moved the family court, seeking the child’s custody on the grounds of changed circumstances. 

He contended that he now had his wife to look after his daughter from his first wife, adding that Kumbles, meanwhile, had got two of their own children, while he had none. 

Chethana first moved the high court challenging the family court’s decision to entertain Jahgirdar’s plea, but her plea was dismissed. She then moved the apex court, which told her Monday to try sorting out the issue through talks.

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