Mumbai, May 14 (PTI) The Bombay High Court on Wednesday termed “unconscionable” a man’s act of taking away his minor daughter from his estranged wife’s custody and urged the couple to keep her out of their matrimonial dispute.
A vacation bench of Justices Kamal Khata and Arif Doctor was hearing a habeas corpus (produce the person) petition filed by a woman claiming that her estranged husband had forcibly taken their five-year-old daughter from her custody and was refusing to hand her back.
Following the court’s directive on Tuesday, the man appeared before the bench on Wednesday along with the child. The father claimed that he had not forcibly taken away his daughter.
The court, however, expressed its displeasure with the man’s conduct.
“This is unconscionable. Imagine the trauma to the child. In the night, the father has snatched the child from her aunt or mother and gone, and he is saying there was no force,” the court said.
The bench directed the father to hand over custody of the child to the mother immediately and permitted him to visit their daughter every Saturday.
“Keep your child out of the fight between you two,” the court urged the couple.