Credit goes to tejaswiniwenham.
when people talk about hard custody battles between sona and dev i feel like laughing SO hard. firstly, although indian law states that child born after divorce within 280 days of divorce are considered legitimate, there is still MUCH ambiguity with the different religious family court laws in the country. basically a child born post divorce could still be considered out of wedlock and the father in that case stands zero grounds for full time custody unless the mother decides to name him as the child's legal guardian and then abandons the child. in fact sona was also under 0 legal obligation to inform him of a child post divorce as she was a single mother and financially capable of raising her child in a stable home.
even in the case that the child is considered "legitimate", a father would pretty much never get custody in accordance to the hindu family act if the child is female. fathers would not even be able to claim custody before kid is five and he would need to prove that living with him would significantly improve the child's well-being financially...which it wont. he cannot claim custody just on the basis of not having character defect and love for his child. especially if the child has been raised in a financially sound happy and safe environment then his case may not even be entertained in court and sonakshi could ask for a dismissal following the child's counseling which would determine if she was happy or not. court does NOT care if sona had or had not informed dev about the birth of a child after divorce.
basically dev stands zero grounds in terms of custody and it is actually FAVORABLE that sona never remarried in terms of custody. its sexist but apparently it shows commitment. in terms of providing a stable home- dev has been busy developing a careful bad boy image with an affinity for changing sexual partners and drinking over the six years whilst sona has built up a very successful start up. who do you think gets custody if this was even a contestable case? FYI- i am a licensed lawyer in 3 countries including India.
so yes, tv show custody cases are stupid. short of really bribing the judicial system and i mean severe blatant bribing that would make the judge not even try to seem fair and disregard every evidence, which is again much harder to do in family court cases where both parents are rich than in criminal court, dev will not be winning any custody. so yes, whilst im glad he isnt plowing his way forcibly into soha's life, he also just has 0 other options considering the fact that krpkab is a marginally more realistic show than most on tv.
so given the situation, i do think sona is legitimately much more concerned with dev forcing himself onto soha's life and ruining the stability. as a mother i believe its good to have both parents' love for a child but stability is much more important and with dev constantly behaving erratically at the behest of his mother's whims and the family's bipolar treatment of the child's mother, post divorce it wouldve been impossible to maintain civility and stability in the child's life. maintaining stability also means that u dont just interrupt a child's routine to push her into a relationship she doesnt quite understand, just cos dev wants it. he needs to grow the hell up and think soha before his petty haq and silly competition with sona. if he cant even bow down to sona for soha then he cant do much for her at all can he. his ego is even bigger than soha. log apne baccho k liye jaan de dete hain, hes not even prepared to give sona due courteous respect for soha's sake. nor her nana nani. so dev is hardly a good parent for a stable life.
i grew up with my mother from the age of 5 and my brother from -6 months old cos our parents divorced and we only saw our dad once in a year during summers. we grew up to b 'normal' highly functional adults. i HATE it whenever someone talks about the importance of having both parents' involvement for normal growth. both parents is wonderful but one responsible and loving parent is all you actually need for 'normalcy'.
sona's concerns are all pretty freakin legitimate. we can all argue that oh ishwari did this and that but dev still chooses to live with her and in making said choice he endangers soha's stability. moreso, living with dangerous criminals such as vicky, he endangers her life. he seems to know about vicky's illegalities and fraud and still ignores it.
sona's decisions make A1 sense to me as a mother. and now that soha is past 5, she (as the court would) decides what will happen. she has full freedom to and she did. she doesnt want to establish papa before trust. thats normal. not something sona put in her head. soha actually did not wanna meet her dad cos she is just fine and happy in her life and didnt wanna take the off chance that her dad disappoints. thats not hard to understand. we are all afraid of the unknown. and believe it or not most of us single parent children are tots fine with it. tv media should stop showing bullshit about how we are emotionally problematic. its society who is more bothered by our "plight". we are not.
id read the forum's outrage on her allowing a small kid to take her own decision and emotionally pressure her to not wanna meet dev and all...well that just a) legally speaking a normal procedure. stability is important well into the teen years but our judicial system recognizes children post 5 to be able to understand their own happiness and stability. post 9 the courtroom decision is majorly based on what the child wants irregardless of other factors. and b) sona in no way ever pressurized soha not to meet her dad in anyway that the court would understand as 'influencing'. she did not malign dev at all.