“Villages have two helipads, but not roads or bridges. We don’t mind helipads in some villages, but at the same time we also want to see roads for children to go to school or college, finish their education and help society,” Justice Prasanna Varale said on Thursday. (File)Observing that a “woman cannot be asked to choose between her child and career,” the Bombay High Court on Wednesday set aside a Family Court order that restrained a woman, a Pune resident, from taking her 9-year-old daughter and relocating to Krakow, Poland, for two years.
The court said the woman had the “important right to development” and directed her estranged husband to give his no-objection stipulated in law, so that her daughter could avail the visa for Poland.
The woman had left her matrimonial home in Delhi along with her daughter in 2016, citing mental torture and ill treatment by her husband and his family, and had applied for dissolution of the marriage in 2017. She had sought to be declared as the sole guardian and custodian of the minor child, so that she had the right to take her daughter with her to Poland.
However, the estranged husband had refused to give a no-objection for his daughter to shift to Poland and moved the Family Court, which had passed a restraining order against the petitioner, prompting her to approach the High Court.
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“I do not think that the court can refuse the job prospects to a mother, who is inclined to take up the job and she cannot be deprived of this opportunity… Noticing that the impugned order has failed to consider the important aspect of right to development, being vested in the petitioner as she cannot be asked to choose between her child and her career, the impugned order is quashed and set aside,” stated Justice Bharati H Dangre.
The court was told by advocates Abhijit Sarwate and Hardev Kaur that their client, an engineer, wanted to work in a senior position in an establishment at Krakow, Poland, and had a “one time opportunity” to do so. The opportunity would also improve the standard of living of her daughter, as well as provide her the due care and affection which only a mother can give, they said.
The court was further informed that the couple had got married in 2010 and they had a daughter in 2013. While the couple was living in Delhi, due to constant “hostile treatment” by her mother-in-law and other members of her husband’s family, the petitioner decided to leave the matrimonial home and returned to her parents’ home in Pune in 2016 along with her daughter. She filed a plea for dissolution of marriage in Family Court, Pune, in 2017.
In the plea, the petitioner’s lawyers said the right to development was a basic human right, which is recognised by the Supreme Court, and the same cannot be denied to the petitioner.
However, advocates Mayur Khandeparkar and Ajinkya Udane, appearing for the respondent husband, objected to relocation of the minor daughter and said that his estranged wife had made attempts in the past to alienate the child from her father and his family, under the guise of her job prospects.
After hearing submissions from both sides, the bench noted, “…The custody of the minor girl is with the mother, who is the natural guardian and considering her age, the girl must accompany her mother, particularly when it is the case of the petitioner that she has single-handedly brought up the child, on being separated from the husband…The petitioner is the mother of the child and has been continuously with the child, since her birth and though a working woman, has struck a balance between her work and care and affection of the child and ensured that she enjoys a healthy upbringing.”
The court directed the woman to bring the child at her own expense to India during school breaks, so that the father could spend “quality” time to develop a “parental bond” with the child, and disposed of the plea.
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