Child breaks down in Bombay HC, refuses to go with mother

Mumbai: Emotional scenes were witnessed in the Bombay High Court on Tuesday when a minor boy was inconsolable, wanting to be with his father and refusing to go to his mother who was granted the child's custody by a family court.

A division bench of justices R V More and Shalini Phansalkar Joshi was hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by the 28-year-old woman, seeking direction to her former husband to appear before the court along with their six-year-old son.

According to the woman, she got married in 2006 and in 2010 she delivered the baby boy. In December 2014, the couple got divorced and the boy's custody was granted to the mother as he was still a minor.

"On August 8 last year, the father forcibly took the child when he was returning home from school and fled the city. The woman then lodged a kidnapping complaint against the boy's father," the petitioner's lawyer Raja Thakare said.

During investigation, it was found that the 30-year-old father had taken the child to his hometown in Surat but police could not trace them. The woman then approached the high court. The man today appeared before the court along with his son.

The court reprimanded him for taking away the child despite the family court granting the boy's custody to the mother. The bench ordered the father to hand over the child to the mother as soon as they step out of court, and disposed of the petition.

However, when the woman tried to take the child, the boy started crying inconsolably and said he wanted to be with his father and not the mother. The court then asked the couple to step outside the court. The mother finally left the court with the wailing child.