JOIN USSC directs NRI mother to return to US with son
A bench of justices Tarun Chatterji, R M Lodha and B S Chauhan ruled that if Vijaysree fails to comply with the direction, Ravichandran will be entitled to the custody of the child after the 15-day period and can take him to the US.
However, the court issued direction to Ravichandran to bear all expenses for their return and stay in the US till they move the appropriate court in New York for the custody of the child.
After the pronouncement of the judgment, Ravichandran said: “It is a good day for fathers because finally the fathers were allowed to be with their children and justice has won.The struggle for finding Aditya took two years and finally the judgment has been given and we will abide by the order of the judge”. Vijaysree said she would abide by the Supreme Court order.
The court struggled for days to find a solution to the vexed issue as V Ravichandran, Vijaysree and Aditya are American citizens. The bench had asked both the parents to suggest a suitable arrangement keeping in mind the betterment of the child.
The court asked the parents to suggest a neutral place where the child could be safe and would get proper education. However, Voora said she neither wanted to go back to the US nor she was interested to admit her child in a boarding school.
The CBI, acting on the court’s August 29 order, traced Aditya and his mother Voora, at a hotel in Chennai on October 25. Voora had been on the run all over the country to keep the child in her custody ever since she fled with the child from the US.
Ravichandran, a New York-based medical practitioner who has many patent to his name, married Voora in Tirupati in December 2000. But soon relation between the couple turned sour and Voora moved New York’s apex court in July 2003 for divorce.
The New York court on April 18, 2005, after allowing divorce, granted the couple joint custody of the child, stipulating that both the parties would keep the other informed about the whereabouts of the child.