The court should take into account the
conduct of the peccant parent while deciding the matter but it must not
penalize the child for it. The Court of Appeal said:
“To take a child from his native land, to remove him to another
country where, may be, his native tongue is not spoken, to divorce
him from the social customs and contacts to which he has been
accustomed, to interrupt his education in his native land and
subject him to a foreign system of education, are all acts (offered
here as examples and of course not as a complete catalogue of
possible relevant factors), which are likely to be psychologically
disturbing to the child, particularly at a time when his family life is
also disrupted. If such a case is promptly brought to the attention
of a court in this country, the judge, may feel that it is in the best
interests of the infant that these disturbing factors should be
eliminated from his life as speedily as possible. A full investigation
of the merits of the case in an English court may be incompatible
with achieving this. The judge may well be persuaded that it would
be better for the child that those merits should be investigated in a
court in his native country than that he should spent in his country
the period must necessarily elapse before all the evidence can be
assembled for adjudication here. Anyone who has had experience
of the exercise of this delicate jurisdiction knows what
complications can result from a child developing roots in new soil,
and what conflicts this can occasion in the child‟s own life. Such
roots can grow rapidly. An order that the child should be returned
forthwith to the country from which he has been removed in the
expectation that any dispute about his custody will be satisfactorily resolved in the courts of that country may well be regarded as
being in the best interests of the child.”
Part Of Judgment
Lahore High Court
Criminal Proceedings
74048/19
2020 LHC 1172
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