In cases there are other cases pending in court between the couple like CrPC 125, DV Act case, IPC 498A/406 etc, many fathers spend their energies to prove to court about ill-behaviour and false cases allegations made by wife, whereas the child custody decisions are not made based on what false allegations (since anyway as yet not having been deemed as false by court) and mental cruelty the wife has been inflicting on husband. Fathers need to highlight child welfare as the main focus of their arguments and bring in all specific wife's behaviours to notice of court to the extent that such behaviour is also against child's well-being and welfare. E.g. if wife is in habit of threatening suicide often, then the argument can be made in court that such behaviour patterns of wife will definitely make her not a fully fit parent, leave alone her being given responsiblity of becoming a sole/single parent to child in case of sole custody given to her. The focus on child welfare has to be brought in, merely highlighting wife's irresponsible or cruel behaviour won't be enough for court to automatically grant reliefs. At least that is the current situation. In future maybe a framework can be evolved (preferably in law) where child custody decisions according to framework based on which facts are proven true about each parent. As of now the ad hoc process seems to be that by default child custody is with mother so that cannot be disturbed unless very strong evidence is brought against her fitness to be a sole custodian and guardian of child, but if a father has the custody of child, then mother can come at a later point of time and get meaningful custody of child based on the fact that she is a mother and courts deem it very important for mother to be part of child's life. This is also because of the current legal regime of child custody laws where there is no concept of shared guardianship of child, with the regime being that one parent gets full custody and other parent gets visitation rights. But it is already changing quickly based on what is seen in individual cases for those fathers who fight persistently in court for shared custody etc.