Man abducts toddler daughter, takes her to Dubai; Court grants guardianship to mother
NEW DELHI: A man’s abducting his toddler daughter and taking her illegally to Dubai, away from his estranged wife, has invited the wrath of a Delhi court which has declared the mother to be the guardian and custodian of the child for “her paramount interest and welfare”.
Despite giving an undertaking to the court that the two-and-a-half-year-old girl will not be taken out of the national capital and her passport deposited in the court, the man chose to flee the country with the minor in a “preplanned manner”.
Taking note of the man’s conduct, Principal Judge of Family Court Swarana Kanta Sharma said children are like flowers which reflect the kind of care and upbringing they receive and the paramount interest of the child cannot be with the parent who had defied law and taken the minor away from her mother to live as a fugitive in another country.
“It will be in the paramount interest and welfare of the minor that the mother is declared sole, exclusive and absolute guardian and custodian of the child,” the court recently said, ordering that the girl be handed over to the woman within one month.
While the man himself had approached the family court seeking to be declared a guardian of the child and the matter was pending, he left India and approached another forum in the foreign land for the minor’s custody.
The woman’s counsel submitted that since the matter regarding the child’s custody was sub-judice before the court in Delhi, the man cannot choose a judicial forum for redressal of his grievances at his whims and fancies.
The court noted that in August when the girl was with the man, he in connivance with others took a flight to Bagdogra in West Bengal and crossed Nepal. He flew out from Kathmandu on Qatar Airways to Doha, then to Muscat and reached Dubai.
This prompted the mother, who was earlier granted the child’s interim custody, to file a habeas corpus in the Delhi High Court seeking production of the girl as she was not returned to her by the man. The father and grandparents were granted visitation rights.