Bombay HC restrains man from meeting son

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has temporarily denied a man permission to meet his 16-year-old son for three months. According to the application, filed by the man’s estranged wife, he had checked his son’s bag on the suspicion that a recording device was hidden there. Due to this, his son was hurt and refused to meet his father. The woman requested the high court to restrain her husband from meeting her son. Taking note of this, the court directed the man not to meet his son for the next three months.

A division bench of Justices Akil Kureshi and Sarang Kotwal was hearing the application filed by the teenager’s mother. The bench said,  “It is absolutely necessary that some time is allowed to pass as a cooling-off period before the respondent (husband) is allowed to meet the child… It would be detrimental to the child if he is forced to meet the respondent against his wish in the immediate future.” said.

Modifying a December 2018 order, which allowed the man to meet his son on the first working Saturday of every month, the judges asked him to apply for another permit after August 31, 2019. In accordance with the 2018 order, the man had met his son on January 1 and February 16 for two hours at the family court counselling centre. However, on March 2, his wife claimed that he made “discouraging comments” about their son’s academic progress and intelligence and had gotten his bag checked.