Panel to take call on law for NRI kids hit by disputes

New Delhi: Inter-continental abduction of children by parents is now a contemporary legal issue which baffles and mesmerises legal systems of nations, whose conflicting positions prevent the return of children to the country of their habitual residence.

Solace can be found only in countries which are signatories to The Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, 1980. But what happens to those aggrieved parents whose countries are not a part of this global conglomerate of like-minded nations which honour each other’s laws. No global family law governs them.

Confronted with this legal problem, the newly constituted Law Commission of India, headed by Justice B.S. Chauhan, will examine multiple issues involved in inter-country and inter-parental child removal among families locked in disputes.

The commission is expected to consider whether recommendations should be made for enacting a suitable law and for signing the Hague Convention on child abduction. This problem is peculiar among non-resident Indians.

Whenever there is problem in the marriage, either the mother or the father secretly abducts the child/children and returns to India resulting in legal battle thereafter for custody of the child/children.

There is no uniform law on this issue and the Supreme Court and different high courts have given conflicting orders keeping in mind the facts and circumstances of the case on hand.

According to advocate Anil Malhotra, dealing in inter-country family disputes, no global family law governs these issues. According to him, defiant stands in different courts of such jurisdictions create deadlocks.

In a population of over 1.2 billion Indians, about 30 million are NRIs living across 180 countries who, by migrating to different jurisdictions, have generated a new crop of spouse related inter parental child removal and international family disputes.

He is of the view that with the increasing number of non-resident Indians and multiple problems arising leading to family conflicts, inter parental child removal to and from India now needs to be resolved on an international platform.