Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Thursday asked the Telangana state advocate-general to direct the Hyderabad city police to produce AP Assembly Speaker Kodela Siva Prasad Rao’s grandson before the court on Friday. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta and Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar was dealing with a habeas corpus petition by Padma Priya, the estranged wife of Kodela Sivaramakrishna, son of Mr Siva Prasad Rao, seeking directive to the police to produce her son before the court.
She told the court that her husband, accompanied by some goons and a local police inspector barged into her house and took away her son. She lodged a complaint on September 18 in Three Town police station of Visakhapatnam city. Reacting to the submission, Justice Sengupta expressed anger at police accompanying Mr Sivaramakrishna when he forcibly to-ok away the 4-year-old son of the petitioner.
The CJ pointed to AP advocate-general P. Venugopal asking the name of the police officer and his connection with the case. Justice Sengupta said, “If he (Sivarama-krishna) barged into petitioner’s house along with his henchmen to take away his son we can understand, but why did the police officer go with him? It is nothing but over enthusiasm and we will examine it. It is the civil court which is to decide the custody of a child. You can go to the civil court and obtain the decree then take away the child, but not with the help of the police,” the Chief Justice observed.
Justice Sengupta said as per the Guardians and Wards Act, the natural guardian of any child below five years of age is the mother. In this case the child is only four years old. He asked the AG of the AP to produce the child in court. The AG replied that the child is not in custody of the police and the case is under investigation.
At this stage K. Jagan Mohan Reddy, counsel for the petitioner intervened and submitted that the child is in Jubilee Hills along with his father and they received information that the child is not well. Mr Venugopal said as the Hyderabad City comes under Telangana, the AP police will not be able to produce the child. The Chief Justice asked Telangana advocate-general K. Ramakrishna Reddy to ensure steps to produce the child before the court.
