chandigarh the punjab and haryana high court has held that a womans extramarital affair is not grounds to assume that she would be a bad mother and deny her custody of her child in a matrimonial disputein a patriarchal society it is fairly common to cast aspersions on the moral character of a woman more often than not these allegations are made without any basis or foundationeven assuming a woman is or has been in an extramarital relationship the same by itself cannot lead to the conclusion that she would not be a good mother to deny her the custody of her child justice anupinder singh grewal observed while hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by a woman from fatehgarh sahib in punjab who is now an australian citizenthe judge also ordered that custody of the fourandahalfyearold daughter be handed to the woman in her petition the woman petitioner name withheld to protect her identity said she had got married in 2013 her husband a native of ludhiana was an australian citizen and she later joined him in australia they had a daughter in june 2017 the couple developed differences and when they were visiting india in january 2020 her husband allegedly took away the child on february 2 2020 when she had gone to her parental village he contended that the minor child had been residing with him and her grandparents in a cordial family environment for almost a year and that change of custody at this stage would not be in the interest of the child especially when the petitioner is living alone and thus would not be in a position to take care of the child