MUMBAI: As summer holidays are almost over, there was heightened activity at the Bombay high court on Wednesday, with estranged husbands seeking access to their minor children . Some left with a smile of relief, others with furrowed brows.

Vacation judge Justice M S Sonak worked overtime and sat till almost two hours after 5pm—the HC’s closing time—as he heard one father after another imploring him to allow them access to their children based either on orders already passed by family courts or to modify the orders. Justice Sonak heard these cases in between other cases of bail, anticipatory bail and builder-buyer disputes.

In one case, a businessman from Pune said he wanted modification of a Pune family court order , which had granted him access to his four-year-old daughter for a few hours every first and third Saturday during vacation at the child care centre in court. He demanded daily access to his daughter, and at one point, with tears in his eyes, said in Marathi, “I don’t get sleep at night.”

The Pune family court had denied him temporary custody after observing that the girl was four years old and that the parents were not on talking terms.

The HC directed the wife to comply with the access order, as it did in another case where the parents have been fighting for almost seven years.

The Bandra family court had granted a man access to his seven-year-old daughter during May 15 to 21 and from May 29 to June 4.

The father approached the HC as he claimed he never got access to his daughter last week and was worried he might not get it from Thursday too. The wife, who was present in court, said she would give him access to their child after the judge asked her to comply with the family court order and hand over the girl to the family court counselor, where the father would spend a couple of hours with her.

