Father moves HC after child ‘tutored’ by mother refuses to speak to him

Father moves HC after child ‘tutored’ by mother refuses to speak to him

Mohan K Korappath, Hindustan Times
Mumbai, December 03, 2012

When a child does not speak to the father due to a strained relationship between the parents, despite staying under the same roof, it is an undesirable state of affairs, the Bombay high court observed.
The court was hearing a petition filed by Prakash Shah (name changed), a senior vice-president of a multi-national bank, seeking access to his 11-year-old daughter. Prakash stays in the same house with his wife, Anjali.

Noting that the mother had refused to allow her child even to speak to the father, justice Roshan Dalvi said: “Children of such strained relationships are tutored and even indoctrinated into refusal and self-denial”.

“This is one stark case of a child being made an unfortunate victim of a bitter family dispute,” the court said.

Deeming it fit to unite the two, the child was called to the judge’s chamber. However, she again refused to speak to her father. In fact, the girl “parrot-like repeated the incidents which the mother herself had stated to the court”.

“Despite the court's initial attempt to help the child see reason in the pristine relationship of a father and child, she only showed vengeance and revenge for the incidents, which are stated to have transpired,” Dalvi said.

The child even refused to answer questions of the court and to hear what the father may want to say, the court observed.

“The child is obviously tutored and advised into refusal,” Dalvi held.

“It appears that she has been instructed to refuse to do whatever the court requested on the premise that it was her desire. The entire exercise is misconceived and ill-advised,” the judge added.

Even though Anjali was opposed to it, the court directed the girl attend sessions with a child counsellor at the family court in the city.

“It would be impossible for the court to go any further in making the child see reason in the face of total and complete denial and disobedience of entreaties of the court,” Dalvi said.

A report has been sought before the next hearing on January 8.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Mumbai/Father-moves-HC-after-child-tutored-by-mother-refuses-to-speak-to-him/Article1-967550.aspx

Woman ticks HC Judge off for 'making' her nine-year-old son cry

 Thursday, November 03, 2011 at 12:39:42 AM

The boy, whose parents are separated, started sobbing when the judge told the kid that he should spend time with his father. If he did not follow the order — or stop crying — “we will send you to the police station.” The sobbing continued for more than an hour outside the court

A mother took on a High Court judge on Wednesday for trying to scare her nine-year-old son into spending his weekends and holidays with his father and threatening him with jail if he didn’t. Justice N K Patil and Justice C R Kumaraswamy were hearing a case between Raja Lakshmi and Subraya Manja over the custody of their son and were trying to convince the woman to send her son to meet his father on weekends and school holidays. The boy, however, started crying when he heard this. “We are telling you to meet your father on the last Saturday and Sunday of the month and half of the vacation. If you don’t, we will send you to the police station. Your father has the same affection for you. Do not act like this. He is your father, he is also human. Your father is not your enemy. You can meet him once in a month,” Justice Patil told the boy. On seeing the boy’s tears, he said, “We are not disturbing your stay with your mother. You can stay with her, but meet your father also. If not, we will send you permanently with your father.” By this time, the boy was howling loudly, saying, “Please, please.” But Justice Patil told the boy, “If you cry, we will send you to jail. Is it not your duty to tell your mother that you want to meet your father and discuss things with him?” The judge then turned to the mother’s counsel: “It is your duty to tell your client that she should let the boy meet his father. Otherwise, you will kill the future of the child. If you people cannot arrive at a compromise, we will pass an order as per the facts of the case. We are tired of such things. Unless we pass the order, you won’t understand the trouble.” The couple had separated after a year of marriage and have been living apart for 10 years now. A lower court had ordered for the restitution of conjugal rights but Lakshmi had refused to go back to her husband. During Wednesday’s hearing, Justice Patil asked both the parties to talk to each other and arrive at a compromise. But their counsel said that the couple was not on talking terms and was incompatible. The judge said, “It is a problem they have created. If they do not talk face to face, the matter won’t be decided. Neither he nor she will be happy. Let them live together for four months and see if they can lead a compatible life. The husband may now realise the importance of a wife. Many who have made mistakes have become model citizens and better human beings. Unfortunately, our society has not developed family counsellors.” The judge then adjourned the case for some time and asked the parties to talk to each other.   Sympathy all around During the adjournment, the boy continued to cry outside the court as his mother tried to console him. “Amma please, let us go home. I do not want to go inside again,” the boy kept repeating. Other clients, advocates and even the policeman on duty tried to console the boy but to no avail. When the court resumed at 4.30 pm, both mother and boy stayed outside.   Dad’s version Manja, the boy’s father, told the court that he and his son would earlier play cricket and lagori, but his wife was not letting them meet. He told the court, “She did not even invite her father to our wedding. I earn Rs 40,000 per month and can take care of the child. I can take care of her like a queen. After marriage, the luck of her brother and sister turned for good and they kept me away. She left me nine years ago and did not come back.” At this point, Lakshmi who was consoling her son outside the court hall, stormed in. “I was in hospital during childbirth but he did not once come to see me. He should have fed me when I was carrying. You will not understand how tough it is for a woman to become a second wife to a man. I will not go with him. I have brought up my son,” she told the court. Justice Patil told her that her husband was repenting. She countered, “Repentance is different and leading a life is different. Even I will repent, but how will anyone understand how I agreed to become his second wife and how badly he treated me. He used me like a worker. For two years, he produced xerox copies in court, showing that he had sent me alimony. But he didn’t. He should have fed me when the child was born. Why else would the child fear going with him? After you scared him, he is still crying after one hour.” After this outburst, the court sent both of them out of the court and read out the judgment. It ordered that since the child was of a tender age, he should not be deprived of the love and affection of both the parents. It ordered that the boy spend the last weekend of every month and half his vacations with the father. “Tell your client to motivate the child to meet the father, otherwise he will get full custody,” the judge told the mother’s advocate. http://www.bangaloremirror.com/index.aspx?page=article&sectid=1&contentid=2011110320111103003955358442f5eaa&mid=51

Custody disputes: Call for India to sign Hague Convention

Custody disputes: Call for India to sign Hague Convention

New Delhi, May 27 (IANS) A Supreme Court judgement affirming the jurisdiction of Indian courts to deal with disputes of children’s custody even if they are foreign citizens has raised demands for the government to accede to the Hague Convention dealing with such disputes and thus protect the rights of non-resident Indians.

In a judgement with far-reaching implications for Indians living abroad, the Supreme Court bench of Justice V.S. Sirpurkar and Justice T.S. Thakur ruled that simply because a foreign court had passed an order, it did not mean that Indian courts should put off deciding on the issue.

“Simply because a foreign court has taken a particular view on any aspect concerning the welfare of the minor, it is not enough for the courts in this country to shut out an independent consideration of the matter. Objectivity, and not abject surrender, is the mantra in such cases,” Justice Thakur wrote in the judgement.

This principle has been upheld by the apex court even earlier, but its reiteration in the recent judgement has raised demands for the government to take steps to accede to the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction.

Bangalore-based Children’s Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting has called for the government to sign the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

In cases of one parent taking away the child to another country, the parent left behind is deprived of the custody of the child. The only solution for this crime is to sign the Hague Convention as it involves different aspects of private international law.

Supreme Court advocate Kirti Singh explained that Indian law does not recognise parental child abduction as a crime.

When one parent removes the child from the family home, or throws the mother out of the house – it is an offence against the child. The child is taken away to an alien atmosphere or is deprived of the presence of the mother and the child suffers due to the withdrawal from the familiar environment, Singh added.

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, 1980, was a means of settling inter-country custody suits. India is not a party to the Hague Convention but with the large number of Indians living and working abroad, there is need to have amendments to the law to protect the rights of children in marital disputes.

The judgement was given on the appeal of a Delhi-based dentist against a Delhi High Court order overturning an interim order given by a city court in a custodial matter for her minor son.

The petitioner, mother of the 11-year-old son, had been awarded interim custody of the child by the trial court in Delhi.

The couple had been living in the US after their marriage, where their son was born. The appellant returned to India with her son in 2008 and filed an application for custody of the child under the Guardians and Wards Act.

Her US-based husband obtained a decree from a US court granting him custody of the child. He had further filed a case against his estranged wife for running away to India with their son despite a court decree granting him custody.

The Delhi High Court had set aside the trial court order, holding that an Indian court had no jurisdiction to decide on the matter as the father had been given custody of the child by a US court. The mother had appealed to the Supreme Court against the high court order.

The Supreme Court bench said since the interest and welfare of the child was of primary concern, a competent court in India was fully entitled and, indeed, duty-bound to examine the matter independently, taking the foreign judgment, if any, only as an input for its final adjudication. The apex court allowed the trial court to hear the mother’s application for custody of the child.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/article/07SmaRSeM78gP?q=India

Hazards of FATHERLESSNESS-Single parenting-p7 news on KAYDA KANOON-10oct10

Hazards of FATHERLESSNESS-Single parenting-p7 news on KAYDA KANOON -10oct10

 

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Part 2/2

 

The cruelty of women who use children as weapons in divorce

The cruelty of women who use children as weapons in divorce

By Harriet Sergeant
Last updated at 10:10 AM on 22nd September 2010

 

Distraught: Many divorced fathers describe the loss of their children as 'an emotional amputation' or 'a living bereavement'

About ten years ago, I was standing in my son's junior school classroom. The teacher had stuck up on the wall the best essays on the topic: 'How I Spent Last Weekend.' One caught my attention.

Not for this little boy a visit to the zoo or the excitement of a football game. Instead, he had chronicled a weekend's battle between his divorcing parents.

'Mum calls dad names on the phone,' he had written in his laborious handwriting. 'We had cake for tea. My sister and I cry.' The teacher caught my eye. She had put up that story on purpose.

'I want the parents to see what divorce they are doing to their children. They should be ashamed of themselves,' she said.

My son recently bumped into that little boy. A decade on, he is 18, has dropped out of school and is on drugs.

Sir Nicholas Wall, the President of the Family Division of the High Court, agrees that something has to be done. He has accused separating couples, especially those from the middle classes, of using their children as 'both the battlefield and the ammunition' to try to score points in their personal disputes.

'There is nothing worse, for most children, than for their parents to denigrate each other,' said the country's most senior family court judge. 'The child's sense of self-worth can be irredeemably damaged.'

Six years ago, my husband and I divorced. It came as a great shock. But we were all too aware our children were just becoming adolescents - and that adolescence is perilous enough without warring parents.

We tried, not always successfully on my part, never to criticise each other in front of the children. Very occasionally, I even managed to emphasise his good points (of which there are many) - it was quite hard when at the time all I wanted to do was murder him.

A female friend was shocked. 'Why aren't you using the children against him?' she asked. 'I would.' 

More...

• Judge attacks 'ogre' parents for damaging children in divorce wars

Her reaction is not unusual. The battlefields Sir Nicholas Wall describes are too often of the wife's choosing. This is because most divorces are initiated by women due to their husband's infidelity, as the fatherhood research body Fathers Direct points out.

These women are hurt and they want to get their own back through the children, money or both. They are determined the husband is as much divorced from his children as his wife.

One wealthy man I know finds himself, despite his riches, at the beck and call of his former wife.

'How can my wife hurt me? How could she bring me to my knees?' he asks. 'Through my children.'

The strategy is very successful. This otherwise powerful man submits to every capricious demand.

'With just two hours' notice, I had to cancel an important meeting and take them to the dentist,' he said. If he refused, his wife said, he would not see them for a month.

An advertising director found himself equally powerless when his wife suddenly moved from London to the Midlands with their two sons.

'How can my wife hurt me? How could she bring me to my knees?' he asks. 'Through my children.'

'She did not tell me. One day she just stopped answering the phone. Until then I had been seeing my sons every weekend,' he says.

By the time the case reached court, the sons were settled in a new school. The judge admitted that what the woman had done was illegal, but because it was in the best interests of the children to be with their mother, he did nothing.

'She had got away with effectively kidnapping my children,' said the father. His relationship with his sons has all but broken down. Their new home is too far for them to come to London. When he goes to see them, he has to stay in a hotel.

'The children get bored in an hour or two,' he says. 'They have their friends and their sports, which they would rather do instead.'

He tells me he finds the situation 'so goddamn painful. I try to play the role of a father - but how can I when I have been deliberately moved to the periphery of their lives?'

The situation leaves many men I have interviewed distraught. They describe the loss of their children as 'an emotional amputation' or 'a living bereavement'.

It is no wonder that within two years of divorce, half of fathers lose contact with their children.

Irredeemably damaged: Children are often forgotten victims in divorce, but there can be dire consequences should their parents split up

As one man said sadly, divorce 'leaves many fathers on the edge of a bloody great abyss. Many fall off and are never seen again'.

Douglas Alexiou, one of London's pre-eminent family lawyers, agrees that the wife holds all the cards in a divorce case.

'Court order after court order is served. The wife claims the children are ill or just do not want to see their father,' he says.

'There is very little a court can do if a mother has poisoned the minds of her children against the father. There is no sanction against the mother apart from a jail term - and no court will do that.

'Perhaps one day a judge will be bold enough to jail a mother and finally set an example.'  

In all this there is only one real victim - the children. If one of those wives was handed an axe and ordered to hack off a limb of her child, she would be appalled. Yet so many women are happy, even gleeful, to commit the equivalent emotional amputation on their children by depriving them of their father.

U.S. author Kathleen Parker in her excellent book Save The Males points out that in depriving a child of their father, 'we reduce a child's chance of a successful and happy life.

'Growing up without a father is the most reliable indicator of poverty and all the familiar social pathologies affecting children, including drug abuse, truancy, delinquency and sexual promiscuity.'

But this misery is not only the fault of the parents. The family court system is adversarial and encourages couples to fight, says Nadine O'Connor, campaign manager at the lobby group Fathers4Justice.

And change, she says, will be a long time in coming - until lawyers stop making their own killing from warring parents, children will continue to be used as weapons.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1314131/The-cruelty-women-use-children-weapons-divorce.html#ixzz10ZZRIO1u

Gone in 60 seconds-Ex-wives whisking away their children to undisclosed locations to prevent father's visitation rights-trend on the rise-Contempt of Court

Publication: Bangalore Mirror;
Date: Sep 7, 2010;
Section: City;
Page: 10

Gone in 60 seconds

Ex-wives whisking away their children to undisclosed locations in a bid to thwart their ex-husbands’ visiting rights is a trend that’s fast catching up in the city

Shyam Prasad shyam.prasad1@timesgroup.com
    Even though a family court in Bangalore granted Raghuram S the permission to visit his son Tarun once every 15 days, Raghuram woke up one fine day to the news that his ex-wife had relocated to Jaipur along with their four-yearold son, without informing him. He was informed of the development by his ex-wife Suma Hanumanthappa’s advocate, that too through e-mail.
    In another case, John Varghese went to visit his two children aged 14 and 8 only to be informed that they had moved to the US along with his ex-wife. “How do I contact them? I don’t even know which state they have relocated to. This, despite a court decree that gives me the right to visit my children,” said Varghese.
    Interestingly, both these cases were settled by the Mediation Centre after a referral from the respective family courts. The Bangalore Mediation Centre claims a success rate of 80.73 per cent out of the 5,094 cases it has handled so far. The average time taken to settle a divorce dispute is 259.35 minutes or just over four hours.
    ”The high-profile case of Adita Chandra whose parents went to the Supreme Court and finally to a court in the US, to fight over his custody, made headlines. But there are so many such cases in Bangalore. Nobody is ready to even acknowledge that it is the fathers who suffer in such cases,” said Kumar Jahgirdar of Children’s Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting (CRISP).
    Raghuram works in Hyderabad and used to visit his son once every fortnight in Bangalore. He was shocked to hear from his ex-wife’s advocate that she had moved to Jaipur along with their child. “Somebody informed me of my ex-wife’s intentions and I immediately moved court. The court said the case was maintainable and took it up. Weeks before the hearing, I came to meet the child and found the house vacated. Her phones were switched off and her advocate informed me through email that she had moved to Jaipur. How can I go to Jaipur twice a month? The court has been informed of this development,” he said.
    ”In cases where a dispute over a child’s custody is as yet to be settled, the court becomes the guardian of the child and not the father or mother. If the mother or father takes away the child to some other place during the hearing without informing the court or the other party, it legally amounts to abduction. But even otherwise, the custodial parent has to inform the other parent of the child’s whereabouts at all times,” said Jahgirdar.
    Kumar Jahgirdar said that cases of custodial parents whisking away their children to undisclosed locations without informing the other parent were on the rise. “Ever since the case of Aditya Chandra became big news, such incidents are on the rise. It is an abuse of the child’s rights when the other parent who is available and fit is not given the right to visit the child,” he said.

A file photo of Raghuram with his son Tarun. The boy’s mother suddenly relocated to Jaipur without informing the father

Child custody disputes: Whose interest is paramount?

 

By S Susheela Chinthamani

Disputes between spouses for the custody of their child is taking the form of a battle fought with vengeance inside and outside the court rooms.

In the midst of groups of fathers, mothers, lawyers and the judges — talking, screaming, shouting, listening and ordering — the children are seen hearing about their ‘paramount interest’ being discussed at length.
Someday, these children will look back and question what was their ‘paramount interest?’ Was it independent of the interest of the father, mother, lawyers or the judge? Why were they not allowed to enjoy their childhood and left to be unsafe? Was it not interference with their rights in the guise of protection of their ‘paramount interest?’ The troubling answer may make them lose respect for society, including their parents.

Each of the separated parents suffering from ‘parent  alienation syndrome’ tries to have exclusive custody of the child, highlighting how dangerous it is for the child to be with the other parent. Children are asked to tell lies, forced to write letters to judges about their unwillingness to go with the other parent, compelled to give their opinions about their choice of a parent, etc. The volition of the children are given more importance than their actual paramount interest.
The parent, having limited custody rights, tries to play the role of an ‘entertainment-provider’ for the child in order to attract the child. The children are compelled to pose for hectic photo and video sessions to collect evidence to be placed before the courts. They are lured by expensive gifts and foreign trips, excellent holidays provided by a parent as against the other with whom they have to stay, study, be disciplined and learn the hard lessons of life. Without giving much thought, the children often express their wish to stay with the ‘entertainment providers.’

Children are treated as joint properties and demand for shared parenting and equal rights is common. The situation is worse when both the parents are busy with their career goals and the children stay with care-takers or grandparents. Grandparents, who develop attachment to the young children, fight for custody through their children. Everyone is focusing on parenting rights — rights of parents, of father, of mother, sentiments of grandparents, duty of a judge, etc — brushing aside ‘the paramount interest of the child.’

The child’s rights over parents begins with its birth. No one, much less a parent, can curtail this right over the other parent. The child has a right not to choose between the parents, not to judge its parents. It has a right to live in its little world full of fun, play, enjoyment, studies and unobstructed growth, unmindful of the mutual dislike and hatred between the parents. No one has a right to trespass and encroach upon their rights. Who can compensate the mother’s sweet kiss, screams, scoldings, warnings or the father’s hugs, kicks, or shouts?

Subjects of dispute

Frequent shuttling of children between the parents under the directions of the court, repeated contempt petitions between the parents alleging ‘disobedience’ instill a sense of panic among the children who do understand that they are made the subjects of dispute between their parents, and that the fight was against each other through them.

Only in the absence of dispute between the parents can the child stay happily with one of the parents, understanding it as a family arrangement. Each disputing parent fails to understand the indispensable need of the contribution of the other for the welfare of the child.

They forget that they are the only ones standing together who can safeguard the paramount interest of the child. When one of them doubts the bonafide of the other and suspects that the other would not stick to the accepted terms, problems arise. It is in this scenario, that the role of courts becomes indispensable in giving a binding force for the arrangements regarding the custody rights between the disputing parents.

The legislature in its wisdom has left the solution uncovered in the statutes. Even the courts find it difficult to choose between the equally capable and responsible parents of the unfortunate children. Any order passed by the court irritates either of the parents. Judges are often called ‘pro-women’ or ‘anti-women’ or those addressing to please the gallery.

It is high time the parents move from their interest towards the paramount interest of the child. All that a parent has to consider without prejudice is “is the company of the other parent dangerous to my child?” Shared parenting is a misnomer. Parenting cannot be shared with any one much less with the other parent. Each parent plays a unique role in the life of a child.
Ultimately, both the parents need to understand that notwithstanding their relationship as husband and wife no longer being cordial or having come to an end, they continue to be a father and a mother for the child and no statute can change that status.
(The writer is an advocate at the Karnataka High Court)

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/78894/