READ ORDER | Punjab & Haryana High Court Grants Custody Of Son To Father After Child Was Found In Sonipat Instead Of London As Informed By Mother

While deciding a habeas corpus petition, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has ordered the minor child’s maternal grandparents to hand over his custody to his father.

Justice H S Sidhu of the high court has observed that a child’s psychological balance is “deeply affected by marital disruption” and stressed that the parents are not only caretakers, but are instrumental in the child’s overall development.

Case:

The couple was married in November 2010, and has two children, a daughter (10) and a son (two and half years). Initially the couple lived in London for a long time but had returned to India for childcare.

Initially, they started living in Noida, but the wife began staying with her parents at Sonipat due to matrimonial discord. According to the petitioner father, in May 2021, his wife left for UK and when he came to know about this, he had filed an online application before the High Court Justice Family Division, London for an inherent jurisdiction order in relation to the minor children seeking relief of summary return of the children to India, for location and passport orders and for a range of other orders to ensure the well being of the children.

On receiving summons, the wife appeared before the court in London through VC and stated that she had removed the children from India without the knowledge or consent of the petitioner because she did not know his whereabouts. Through its order dated July 26, High Court Justice Family Division, London had directed the wife to make the children available to spend time with the petitioner by way of video and/or telephone calls on every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 18.00 GMT.

Son Found In Sonipat, Not London

Sensing something was amiss, the father along with his family members visited his in-laws house at Sonipat on September 16, 2021, and shockingly found his son living there, which his wife had concealed from the court. Concerned about the safety of his son, the father had filed a habeas corpus petition before the high court against “illegal detention” of his minor son from the custody of his in-laws staying in Sonipat.

Punjab and Haryana High Court

The high court stressed how the father was a natural guardian of the minor child. The court said,

Petitioner is the natural guardian of his minor child. But for some bald allegations made against him, there is no reason to believe that he would not conduct himself as a good and caring father. Minor boy (identity protected) is presently with his maternal grandparents.

The mother is in the UK. Her return to India is uncertain in view of her passport and travel documents having been seized because of the pending proceedings in UK court.

The judge said,

We hope and trust that the parties will forget and forgive their differences and join hands in providing a congenial atmosphere … for the development of their minor children.

In this case the mother of the child, staying in the UK, was portraying that the child was living with her but the father noticed that the boy was asleep during video-conferencing most of the time (as he used to call him on UK timings).

The judge stressed on the fact that the parents are not only caretakers, but are instrumental in the overall development of their child. The high court concluded,

In the present case, there is every possibility that the parties may reconcile and start over their relationship afresh, at least for the sake of happiness of their own offspring if for no other reason.

The parties are indeed mature and sensible enough to understand that the ordinary wear and tear of married life has to be put up in within the larger interests of their own happiness and of the healthy, normal growth and development of their offspring, whom destiny has entrusted to their joint parental care.

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