The Delhi Police told the high court Monday that it has traced an Indian man and his three-year-old Ukrainian son, whose mother has claimed that the child was illegally brought to India during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
While the man was present before the court, the judges asked the police about the whereabouts of the boy. To this, the court was told that the boy was not brought before it as he was unwell. A bench of justices Siddharth Mridul and Amit Sharma noted that the man has undertaken to bring the boy to the court on Wednesday (November 16).
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The court listed the matter for further hearing on November 16 as the main counsel for the petitioner woman was not available on Monday. The Centre's standing counsel Ajay Digpaul, representing the ministries of home and external affairs, told the court that the man and his son entered India on March 28.
The court was earlier informed by the child's mother, a Ukrainian, that she and her former husband were divorced and though the minor's custody was granted to her by a court in the east European country, the man took the boy away without informing her.
The court had asked the city police to trace the man and the boy and also requested them to appear before it at the earliest. The court had also issued notices to the two central ministries, the Delhi Police and the man.
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In her petition, the woman, who communicated with the court through a translator, said the man was seen in Assam and Bihar. The woman, in her plea moved through advocate Sravan Kumar, has alleged that her son was abducted by her former husband on March 23 when he had taken the child for a walk and not returned.
After the dissolution of their marriage last year, the man was granted visitation rights of their minor son.
Besides seeking the production of the child, the woman has also sought a direction to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or the Delhi Police to lodge a case for alleged kidnapping, illegal travel of a minor without valid documents, creation of a fabricated Indian passport in Ukraine and causing pain to the petitioner and her daughter.
(With PTI Inputs)
