Mother wins six-month battle for son

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An Indian medical scientist in Australia has won the custody of her seven-year-old son through the Madras high court after he was taken away by her husband in the pretext of spending a brief holiday at hometown Coimbatore.

Allowing the habeas corpus petition by Ms Jayanthi, a division bench on Wednesday directed her husband R B Pugazh to hand over the boy and his passport to her to enable her to return to Perth, where she is employed.

The court did not find substance in his allegation that his wife had an illicit relationship with a doctor, who was also of Tamil Nadu origin and working at Perth, which fractured their marriage and forced him to file for divorce at a family court in Coimbatore.

Justices K Mohan Ram and G M Akbar Ali held that Mr Pugazh had violated the undertaking he had given to a court Perth in a ‘shared parental responsibility’ case that followed bitter feud with his wife.

The Perth court had allowed him custody of the boy for 21 days should he desire to take him out of Australia for holiday, but Mr Pugazh brought his son to Coimbatore on October 1, 2011 and did not return. Besides, he admitted the boy in a local school and filed for divorce, the court noted.

The court also rejected the allegation, made by Mr Pugazh in his defense, that the boy was traumatized by racial discrimination at his Perth school and also faced neglect by his working mother.

The kid’s performance reports showed that he had a healthy tenure at school and the fact that Ms Jayanthi spent considerable time in Tamil Nadu fighting for her son, even by taking leave of absence on loss of pay, demonstrated her care for the child, the court said.

The court also rejected Mr Pugazh’s contention that his parents, with whom he was staying in Coimbatore, would take good care of the boy. “At a tender age, the care of the mother is of utmost importance.

At least for the time being, till the guardianship issue is finally decided by the family court, Coimbatore, the custody of the child should be with the mother”, the court said, while also accepting Ms Jayanthi’s case that her husband was ill equipped to take care of the boy since he was unemployed.

“This is a great relief for the mother, who has been here for the last six months fighting for her kid. She got his custody this afternoon and will take the flight to Perth in about a week”, said her counsel Ms Sudha Ramalingam.