Nilanjan Bhattacharya v. The State of Karnataka
Background
The appellant, a US-based father, and his wife, both Indian nationals, had settled and had a son in the United States. In 2019, the mother travelled to India with the then-two-year-old child and decided not to return. The father obtained a custody order from a New Jersey court and then sought a habeas corpus writ from the Karnataka High Court, which ruled in his favour and allowed him to take the child back to the US, but attached two COVID-era conditions requiring health certificates from Indian and US medical authorities that were, in practice, impossible to obtain.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court appointed an amicus curiae to represent the mother, who had not entered an appearance, and learned through her that the mother did not wish to contest the matter. Examining the full case (not just the narrow challenge to the two conditions), the Court held that the child's welfare was paramount, since India is not a signatory to the Hague Convention on child abduction, a foreign court's custody order is only one factor, but here the US-born child had only briefly been in India and had not "put down roots," the father was heavily involved in his upbringing, and summary return to his home country served his interests. The Court struck down the two unworkable health-certificate conditions as serving no real purpose, while building in safeguards for the mother, video-call access, funded travel for her to visit the US, and an annual visit by the child to India, until a competent court decides custody more fully.
Lesson Learnt
In cross-border custody disputes, Indian courts prioritise the concrete welfare of the child over rigid procedural conditions or even over the narrow scope of what was formally challenged in the appeal, and will fashion practical access arrangements for the parent left behind.