HC raps Sangrur child panel for interfering in lives of man, daughter

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 22

Rapping the Sangrur Child Welfare Committee (CWC) for interfering in the lives of a man and his minor daughter, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has imposed Rs 50,000 costs on its chairperson. The amount is to be paid from her pocket.

The rap came nearly a month a Division Bench in the same matter ruled that the intent, approach and an order passed by the Patiala CWC, whereby the minor was removed from her father’s custody before being given in foster care, lacked bona fide.

The matter was initially brought to the High Court’s notice after the child’s father, an Army officer, filed a Habeas Corpus petition. Among other things, the father alleged that an aunt and uncle, to whom the child’s custody was handed over, were influential persons of the area. The uncle was, in fact, related to a sitting MLA from the ruling party.

Taking up the matter, a single judge Bench admonished the Patiala CWC for “colourable exercise of powers” in the nine-year-old child’s custody matter.

Refusing to intervene in the single judge order on the appeal by the uncle and aunt, the Division Bench asserted the Army officer, being the biological father of the minor, was her natural and legal guardian in terms of Section 6 of the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956. On the contrary, the appellant uncle and aunt failed to show whether they had any authority or lawful right to detain the minor. “In the given circumstances, the only and the inevitable conclusion we could reach is: She was in illegal detention of the appellants,” the court said.