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Kids should not be prevented from meeting their parent: HC
The vacation bench of the Bombay high court on Monday observed that no child should be prevented from meeting either of his or her parents. The court was hearing a petition where a mother had challenged the family court’s order allowing her five-year-old son’s father to meet him during the child’s summer vacation.
The vacation bench of the Bombay high court on Monday observed that no child should be prevented from meeting either of his or her parents. The court was hearing a petition where a mother had challenged the family court’s order allowing her five-year-old son’s father to meet him during the child’s summer vacation.
The vacation bench on Monday, however, rapped the petitioner for trying to trick the court and refusing to send her son to her estranged husband during summer vacation.
A vacation bench of justice SJ Kathawala and justice PD Kode was hearing a petition filed by a woman from Pune challenging the Pune family court order giving custody of her son to her estranged husband for a month.
According to the petition, the couple had married in 2006 but filed for divorce in 2009.
The family court had directed the wife to send the son to her husband on May 9.
The wife had however refused to send the child and approached the high court alleging that her husband was mentally unstable and she could not risk sending her boy to him. The petitioner’s lawyer told the court on Monday that the husband also had a history of physically abusing the wife.
The lawyer further claimed that the husband has not been paying maintenance to the wife for the child’s well-being.
The court retorted, “Why allege the father is mentally unstable when the real problem is that he is not paying maintenance?” No child can be deprived of meeting either of his parents, the bench observed. Justice Kathawala, while directing the woman to allow the father to meet his son, warned the petitioner not to play “tricks with the court”.
“You cannot use tactics like claiming the man is mentally unstable,” the court observed.
The matter has been posted for further hearing on Friday
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