Gujarat: Father seeks girl’s custody from orphanage

AHMEDABAD: In a strange case, a 39-year-old man, a resident of Vadaj, approached the Gujarat high court seeking custody of his just 3-year-old daughter, who was abandoned by his ex-wife and the child’s mother, at an orphanage in Nadiad.

After hearing the case, Justice V P Patel on Monday stayed the Matruchhaya Orphanage in Nadiad and the superintendent of the Children’s Home, Kheda (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Kheda), from initiating any adoption process for the child.

The HC intervened after the father placed before the court the ‘swaichhik parityag patra’ (deed of surrender) that the mother

signed while leaving the girl at the orphanage. One condition in on the deed says that the signatory who surrendered the child “understands that my child may be adopted by person(s) residing in India or abroad and give my/our consent for this purpose”. It also said that the mother would not object if

the child was handed over to anybody for adoption.

The father rushed to court as soon as he learned about the abandonment. He said that his ex-wife and her father had kept his daughter’s whereabouts from him ever since he last saw the girl, on July 12, 2017. According to the petitioner’s advocate, Rajan Patel, the couple married in October 2015 against the will of their family members. The couple lived in Ranip and their daughter was born on December 13, 2016. Their relationship soon deteriorated and they

separated in June 2017. A month later, on July 12, 2017, they drew up an agreement and the child went to the mother. She had been in her father's custody till then.

As the father was not allowed to see the child, he filed various litigations, in the metropolitan court, family court and the high court, to get custody. This did not yield any results. Recently, he learned that the child had been abandoned at a Nadiad orphanage by the mother. He filed a habeas corpus petition in the high court for the child to be produced in court. The petitioner also sought a DNA test to ascertain that the child was biologically his. The reason he cited was that he had only seen her at a very young age and does not know what she looks like now.