Ahmedabad: The chief district judge in Gandhinagar, a PSI woman and a child protection officer, supervised the transfer of custody of a three and a half year old boy from his paternal grandparents to his maternal grandparents on Thursday afternoon on the Gujarat high.
The child was given custody so that they could join their mother, who was desperately waiting for him in the United States after receiving an order from a Georgia state court. As an illegal immigrant, the woman had the restriction that she could not visit India in person to obtain custody of her child, even after securing her rights through a US court, her lawyer said.
The case involved a couple from a village in Mehsana County. They immigrated to the United States a few years ago without a valid immigration process. They had a son who was sent to India for proper care because the couple struggled to raise the child because the child did not have citizenship status. A year after the child was born, their relationship broke down. The woman was granted custody by a U.S. court until August 12, 2021 and wanted to enforce it but was unable to return to India to obtain custody of her son.
In India the child was raised by grandparents. He was with his maternal grandparents for almost two years. While the custody battle arose in the United States, the child was taken in by his paternal grandparents.
She filed a habeas corpus petition with the Supreme Court, complaining that despite a court order, her in-laws were not separated from custody of the child. When the court inquired with the elderly couple last week, they said they were ready to send the child to the United States, but the mother should come in person to obtain custody.
Two days later the Supreme Court convened the child’s maternal grandparents. They appeared in court through videoconferencing. They told the court that the child was only with them most of the time since it came from the US. His paternal grandparents welcomed him with the certainty that the child would be sent to the United States, but they did not follow their word.
After hearing the case, the bank, headed by Justice Sonia Gokani, noted: “Without making any allegations and noticing that the child must first be sent to the mother for a period of four weeks, custody must be given to the maternal grandparents who should look after the child with the greatest care and caution. ”
The court requested a report from the social security officer after four weeks and published another hearing on March 5. In the meantime it has been ordered that the child passport that is held by the public prosecutor’s office must be deposited with the HC registrar.
FacebookTwitterLinkedinE-mail
Comments are closed.