MUMBAI: In a rare order, a family court on Friday ordered a woman to pay Rs 45,000 as reimbursement to her estranged husband after she failed to handover custody of their daughter as directed by the court during the Christmas vacations last year. The reimbursement includes expenses incurred by the man and his mother towards air fare, bus fare and taxi fare, for the access not having materialized despite them arriving in the city from Kerala.

Based on the information in the court appointed counsellor’s report, the court reprimanded the woman for tutoring the child against spending time with the father. “It is unfortunate that instead of preparing the child for access, there seems to be tutoring of the child, who had accompanied the father and his mother for unsupervised access in the past, which was reported to have worked out very smoothly,” the judge said.

Referring to the father, while highlighting the plight of the child, the judge observed, “I find that this petitioner has not tried to understand the situation of the daughter who is under tremendous trauma of making her mother happy by refusing to go with the father and the father in turn pressing for the access which leads to an uncontrollable situation.”

The man in his petition told the court the court had passed an order of independent overnight access of the minor daughter with a direction that he would bring his mother from Kerala to Mumbai and that she would remain present during the week long access in May last year. The man said that during this time, a bond had developed between the child and him. Accordingly in October last year, the court granted Christmas Vacation access to him, permitting him to take the child to Kerala. However, he was directed to bring his mother was also to accompany the child while traveling from Mumbai to Kerala and back. Accordingly the man had brought his mother from Kerala to Mumbai and spent for her air tickets and stay. He alleged that the child’s mother defied the order and instead filed a petition in the Bombay high court.

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