With child custody battles transcending national boundaries creating immense mental stress on children, Chief Justice of India JS Khehar on Saturday underlined the need for India to have a law to deal with such cases.
With India yet not a signatory to the 1980 Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, the CJI said, “India should decide to be a signatory to the Hague Convention of 1980…because child rights are vital and they are in a flux.”
The Convention, which has been signed by 95 countries, protect the rights of children against being “removed” from one country to another by warring spouses to illegally win custody of the child.
Addressing the legal scenario in India with regard to the Hague Convention and Child Custody matters at a seminar here organised by the International law Association, Justice Khehar said, “When matrimonial disputes change to child-custody battle, the child concerned is in a serious stress. When it transcends national boundaries, the welfare of the child suffers. The legal battle gets entangled in sovereign laws of the nations.”
He felt the question to grant custody in a trans-border custody case is a cultural question involving the ways of life and customs to which the child is accustomed to.”
His concern was shared by his brother judge in the Supreme Court Justice AK Sikri. Highlighting the need to bring a law on this issue, Justice Sikri said, “It is not easy to decide the custody of a child. It becomes more difficult when we have to decide while granting custody and one of the parent is abroad. The visitation right granted to that parent abroad will be difficult.”
The CJI also favoured foreign lawyers practicing in Indian courts and allayed fears of Indian lawyers over the issue of allowing their foreign counterparts to set feet here. “”I feel that Indian lawyers are no less than any lawyer in the world. If we have any apprehension that somebody will come from abroad and snatch our profession and substitute us, I don’t think it’s going to be like that,” CJI said.