Hyderabad: Moved by his commitment towards his children, the Hyderabad High Court granted a single NRI father permission to take his minor children back from India to the UK.
A division bench comprising Justice C.V. Nagarjuna Reddy and Justice G. Shyam Prasad allowed a habeas corpus petition filed by an NRI who works as a team manager in the physiotherapy department of the National Health Services of UK.
The bench observed that “We are conscious of the fact that by allowing the case, we will be separating the minor children from their mother. But unfortunately, she has been adamant that she would not like to go to the UK, and would rather continue living in India.”
The bench noted that the children’s father had stayed back in India for over six weeks to pursue his case and thus displayed his commitment towards his children. “We have no reason to believe that he intends to take his children to the UK to cause harm to their interests,” it found.
It added that ordinarily, no father would reso-rt to such acts, and the facts of the case did not warrant such a conclusion. “Upon holistic consideration of the entire case, we are thoroughly satisfied that all criteria such as the comity of courts, the orders of the foreign court having jurisdiction over the custody of the children, the citizenship of the petitioner and the children, an intimate connect, and, above all, consideration for the welfare and best interests of the minor children are satisfied by the petitioner,” the bench observed.
The bench said, “We do not intend to deprive her of the facility of travelling to the UK to visit her children sho-uld she feel like doing so in the future. To facilitate this, we direct the petitioner to deposit '5 lakh in her bank account as a condition for taking custody of his two minor children, to take them to the UK to be handed over to the jurisdictional court.”
The bench directed the AP home secretary to take custody of the children, along with th-eir passports and other travel documents, and to hand them over to the petitioner after coll-ecting proof of his having deposited the Rs 5 lakh.
TS moves appeal against single judge verdict
The Telangana government has moved an ap-peal before the Hyderab-ad High Court, challenging an order by a single judge granted in April 2017, directing it to constitute a Security Comm-ission and Police Compl-aints Authority at the state and district levels within three months.
The state government contended in its appeal that the single judge or-der regarding members to be appointed in the Commission and Comp-laints Authorities is beyond the order passed by the Supreme Court.
The government told the court that the single judge also suo motu initiated contempt proceedings against the officers concerned for not implementing the order.
When this appeal came before the bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan, the respondents in the case urged for an adjour-nment and the bench adjourned the case.
