The Supreme Court, while considering an appeal filed by a woman against a Habeas Corpus Petition filed by her husband, said that the parent who is denied custody of their children should have the right to talk to them for five to ten minutes every day.
The bench comprising of Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Aniruddha Bose said that the court proceedings pertaining to custodial matters should clearly define the nature, manner and specifics of the visitation rights.
Earlier, in a Habeas Corpus Petition filed by her husband, the woman was directed by the High Court to return to the USA with her minor child. The woman is required to be present in the US for the jurisdictional court proceedings.
The Apex court passed the following judgement on the woman’s appeal:
In one of the contentions raised by the appeal on the High Court’s order was that the writ petition was not maintainable.
On which, the bench observed that it was late to urge that the writ of Habeas Corpus isn’t maintainable if the child is under the custody of another parent. The bench said that the law can invoke its extraordinary writ jurisdiction keeping in mind the child’s best interest.
The bench also said that the court cannot force the woman to stay anywhere if she doesn’t wish to.
The SC bench challenged the HC’s orders demanding the woman to return to the US along with her child. The court had given the woman six weeks to return to the US which would then enable the jurisdictional court in the States to pass further orders in the case.
The SC bench observed, "The wife is an adult and no court can force her to stay at a place where she does not want to stay. Custody of a child is a different issue, but even while deciding the issue of custody of a child, we are clearly of the view that no direction can be issued to the adult spouse to go and live with the other strained spouse in writ jurisdiction."
