Mother seeks SC intervention as minor daughters allegedly kept from her by grandparents

New Delhi: A woman has approached the Supreme Court by filing a habeas corpus petition, for custody of her minor daughters aged seven and three years, who, she claimed, have been illegally and forcibly detained and confined to their paternal grandparents home, depriving her, the natural guardian all access and contacts.

A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and R Mahadevan decided to examine her plea and asked the Uttrakhand state counsel to ascertain factual position as to where the kids were residing.

The court also asked advocate Dushyant Parashar, arguing for the petitioner to implead her husband, working as a software professional in Delhi, as a respondent in the matter.

During the hearing, the court asked the petitioner as what directions she wanted from the court. The counsel submitted her two daughters were with their grandfather and grandmother in the village, they are not studying.

"She does not know about their health status. The daughters should be given to her so that she can get them educated and can take care of them," her counsel said.

The court also asked the counsel as to how the woman would raise them all alone.

Her counsel said she is an MCA, she will work and stay in parents' house.

In her plea, the woman alleged she has been deliberately deprived of the custody of her children solely to shield the husband and his family from criminal accountability, to obstruct the petitioner s testimony, to avoid payment of lawful maintenance, and to protect the in-laws from legal consequences under domestic violence and dowry laws.

"This strategy of isolation and forced separation was employed to break the petitioner emotionally, financially, and legally. The children have been kept isolation, deprived of education, medical care, and maternal love. The elder daughter has not been enrolled, amounting, to a gross violation of Article 21-A of the Constitution," the plea said.

Her plea further said, the petitioner is a cancer patient undergoing treatment, financially distressed, and has exhausted all alternative remedies. She has been declared mentally unstable by the respondents without any medical basis, leading to public defamation and further denial of legal aid. 

The petitioner's plea is not only for recovery of her minor daughters but also for the enforcement of their fundamental rights under Articles 14, 15, 21, 21-A, and 39(e) of the Constitution, it said.