Ahmedabad: Gujarat High Court reprimanded a man for forcibly abducting her daughter from the court and granted the daughter’s custody to mother. The incident happened when the court permitted him to talk to the daughter during a hearing.
Recently, the bench consisting of Justice Umesh Trivedi and Justice C M Roy, granted the custody of the four-year-old child to her mother. As the high court reprimanded the father, the court said that he cannot just take away the custody of child in this way, as per a report by The Times Of India.
The couple got married in 2016 and started to face matrimonial disputes resulting in wife returning to her parents’ home in Ahmedabad and filing a criminal case for cruelty against her husband, who lives in Mumbai.
She also sought maintenance through the city’s family court. During an ongoing maintenance suit hearing on Oct 5 last year the court allowed the man to speak with his daughter for a brief period. After spending 30 minutes with the daughter, he disappeared with the child. Eight months later, the woman filed a habeas corpus petition in the high court and gave the details about the incident. Then, the high court ordered the man to bring the child to court on June 20, the report added.
Later, the child was presented in court on Monday and the custody was given to her mother. Court deemed the father’s action as unlawful and questioned the father’s counsel about his client’s actions.
In response, the counsel alleged that the wife was living in adultery with a married man and overlooked the child’s responsibility.
The judges said that if the father wanted custody, he should have filed a legal suit. They emphasized on the fact that even a biological father cannot take custody without informing the parent who currently has custody.
Finally, the high court has granted 10 days to the father for filing a suit for custody and scheduled further hearings for July 5.