Mumbai: The Bombay high court is expected to hear this month a petition filed by a 40-year-old man who has sought Rs 1.5 crore in compensation from his “biological mother” for allegedly abandoning him in Mumbai when he was two years old. According to the petitioner, the woman later refused to accept him as her son.
Shrikant Sabnis had filed the suit in the high court last year and when the matter had come up for hearing in December 2019, the court had adjourned the hearing till January 13, 2020 at the request of the applicant’s lawyer.
Mr Sabnis, a make-up artist by profession, has claimed in his petition that he underwent a life full of agony and mental trauma after being intentionally abandoned in an unknown city. He stated that for this, his biological mother and her second husband (his stepfather) should compensate him.
According to Mr Sabnis, his mother was earlier married to Deepak Sabnis. The couple used to live in Pune and they had a child in February 1979. He also stated that his mother was ambitious and wanted to move to Mumbai to work in the film industry. In September 1981, she took the child along with her and left for the city. Once they reached Mumbai, however, the woman allegedly abandoned her son in a train and left, the plea alleged, adding that the child was found by a railway officer and sent to a children’s home.
It is further claimed in the plea that in 1986, Mr Sabnis’ maternal grandmother succeeded in getting his legal custody. He initially lived with his grandmother, but was later brought up by his maternal aunt.
The plea stated that in 2017, Mr Sabnis learnt about his biological mother. After procuring her number, he contacted her in September 2018 when she accepted he was her son and that she had to abandon him due to unavoidable circumstances.
He later met his mother and her second husband, but they asked him not to disclose his real identity in front of their children, it said.
The petitioner has now sought a direction from the court to his mother to declare that he is her son and that she had abandoned him when he was two years old as well as compensation.
