NRIs move SC for law to deal with 'parental abduction' cases; Court issues notice to Centre

NEW DELHI: Increasing cases of parental abduction, under which a parent living in a foreign country takes back the child to India without informing his or her spouse, prompted a group of US-based NRI parents to approach the Supreme Court on Friday, seeking its direction to the Centre to frame a law to deal with such cases.
They contended that there was lack of clear guidelines on the issue of jurisdiction and procedural aspects pertaining to international parental child abduction cases which were being filed by estranged couples both in India and the country of their residence, resulting in simultaneous proceedings in two different courts.They said the Centre was not taking steps to ratify the 1980 International Convention on Child Abduction despite the Law Commission's recommendations.
International Parental Child Abduction (IPCA) is the illegal removal of children from their home country by a parent to a foreign country or the illegal retention of children in a foreign country without the other parent's consent or a court order from the jurisdiction where the children habitually reside.
Appearing before a bench of Justices R F Nariman and Navin Sinha, senior advocate Jayant Bhushan and lawyer Shadan Farasat contended that India had not ratified the 1980 Convention which mandates that a child should be promptly restored to his or her country of habitual residence in case of such abduction and there is no law to deal with such cases. They pleaded the bench to intervene and set guidelines to ensure that child abduction cases involving NRI parents are heard by one competent court.
The Convention provides for a legal mechanism for countries to work together on child abduction cases. It requires formation of a central authority which is supposed to help locate abducted children, help encourage amicable solutions to parental abduction cases, help process requests for return of children within six weeks of filing an application.
"The cases often take years to resolve, leading to children and families often suffering from emotional, psychological and financial trauma. There have been cases where the left-behind parent does not even know where the child is staying in India. Some parents vanish with the child without disclosing an address to the other parent. This is a traumatic experience for the other parent who does not know the whereabouts of his/her child. Despite the alarming rate of child abductions, neither the US nor India has put in place a mechanism to remedy the human suffering," the petition said.
Agreeing to hear their plea, the bench issued notice to the Centre and asked it to file response within eight weeks.
"Despite several pleas, Indian law does not even recognise international parental child abduction as a legal issue, leave alone a crime. In India, there is no legislation or guidelines by the government to deal with such cases and matters of custody have so far been left largely to be determined by the courts. There has been no uniform policy followed by the courts, which tends to treat the issue of child removal as a custody dispute between parents. This is clearly in contravention of India's international obligations," the petition said.