Custody battle for youngsters of 11-year-old boys leads Kenyans towards Indian court docket

A Kenyan businessman is on trial to prevent her estranged Indian wife from taking her son away.

Supreme Court Justice AC Mrima issued an order on August 30 preventing the woman, her servants or agents from taking the minor abroad without the express consent of the minor and the petitioner.

The petitioner and the boy are Kenyan citizens who live in Nairobi, where the boy goes to school, while the defendant is an Indian citizen residing in New Delhi.

Court documents indicate that the minor was living with his parents in Kenya until March 10, 2012, when the woman and the boy visited India on the pretext of visiting his grandmother.

Upon arrival in India, the woman filed a lawsuit with the New Delhi High Court for an injunction that prevented the father from relocating the minor from the Asian country or from attending school.

“Only after protracted and protracted litigation, in which the court had various personal interactions with the minor at different stages of the proceedings, did the Supreme Court of India, in Civil Appeal No. 3559 of the Supreme Court of 2020, come to the conclusive conclusion that the good the child was best served and ensured by giving the petitioner indefinite custody of the minor, with the defendant being granted visits during the summer and winter school holidays each year, ”the court records read.

The father also claims that the minor was ill-treated by the mother in India.

The Times of India reported that the man was granted custody of the 11-year-old child in October 2020 but was later found to have misled the Indian Supreme Court.

On August 11, the woman obtained an order from the Supreme Court of India forcing the man to apply to the Indian Embassy office in Nairobi to issue an Overseas Citizen of India Card to the minor so that he could board a flight to India can .

But the father fears that if the minor goes to India, the mother will refer to orders from the Supreme Court of India making the boy a ward of Indian courts.

“The minor has his habitual residence in Kenya and is very aware of his Kenyan identity. He has expressed his reluctance to take an Overseas Citizen of India Card and is unwilling to travel to India, especially during the contagious coronavirus pandemic, when India has had very high infection rates and many deaths, “the man says in court records .

“It becomes impossible for the Kenyan courts to protect the minor’s best interests and interests and / or to enforce the minor’s rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Kenyan Constitution when the minor is outside the jurisdiction of the court,” he added added.

The matter was set for directions on October 13th.