Reprimanding an advocate-father who failed to abide by the magistrate’s order allowing visitation rights to the mother, the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court has said that he “ought to have shown remorse” before the District Court in respect of his conduct and “improved upon his behaviour”.
Justice Sandeep Marne recently dismissed the petition filed by the father challenging the order of the magistrate striking down his defence and allowing access to the mother. The father, while violating the visitation rights to the mother, contended that the child, 8, did not want to meet his mother.
After Justice Marne passed the order upholding the magistrate's order striking down the father’s defence, his advocate Sanket Kulkarni gave an undertaking that the father would follow the order granting visitation rights to the mother.
The HC said: “Petitioner ought to have shown remorse before the District Court in respect of his conduct and improved upon his behaviour at least after his defence was struck off. Far from doing so, he sought to justify his conduct on the pretext of the disinclination of the child to meet the mother.”
Terming the undertaking inconsequential, the HC said: “It is only after the judgment is dictated that the undertaking is tendered… In such circumstances, tendering of such undertaking at a belated stage is inconsequential.”
The court also took note of the fact that during the custody battle, which is pending for the last three years, the “child has grown from 5 years to 8 years”.
“The child today is eight years old and the mother has been granted visitation rights for only two hours in a week… It is really unfortunate that the father is creating hurdles and preventing the mother from meeting the child,” said justice Marne adding that the father’s conduct in (magistrate’s) court, as reflected in its order, “speaks volumes about lack of bonafide”.
Instead of granting access to the mother, the father took the defence that the child did not wish to meet the mother and suggested that the case be referred to a counsellor.
The court noted that the father’s “incalcitrant attitude” has continued even after passing the order. “Petitioner appears to be attempting to frustrate the order granting visitation rights in a indirect manner,” it added.
In August 2020, the district magistrate had granted visitation rights to the mother for two hours each Sunday. The order directed that the father not be near his son or be visible to him during the visit so that the son does not get intimidated while meeting his mother.
Since the mother was not allowed to meet her son, she filed an application before the magistrate’s court for striking off the defence of the father for repeated violation of this order.
The father challenged this before the HC.
The HC dismissed his petition observing that it was “devoid of merits”.
