Day-long hearing to decide on child custody matters at Madras HC

CHENNAI: A five-judge bench of Madras High Court constituted by Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari to decide whether the High Court has the jurisdiction to entertain child custody matters on Friday had a day-long hearing and the matter has been posted to Monday for further hearings.

The full bench comprising Justice PN Prakash, Justice R Mahadevan, Justice M Sundar, Justice N Anand Venkatesh, and Justice AA Nakkiran was formed by the HC to decide on the concurrent jurisdiction of HC and district/family courts in child custody matters and guardianship-related matters filed by estranged couples.

The full bench started hearing the arguments from several senior advocates including senior advocate Arvind Datar and advocates N Geeta, Hari Shankar, Sampath, Jyoti, Karthik Ranganathan, A Davidson, and others.

Senior advocate Datar submitted that though Family Courts Act is a central legislation, a specific amendment should have been made that the jurisdiction of HC be taken away.

“Lastly, District Court is not a nomenclature. Each legislation says who should exercise jurisdiction. The District Court will not include an HC just because HC has original jurisdiction. All district courts have original jurisdiction and some HCs have original jurisdiction. That does not mean that every HC which has original civil jurisdiction becomes a district court, ” the senior counsel argued.

The judges heard arguments till 5.30 PM on Friday and the matter has been posted for further hearing on Monday by 2.30 PM.

The bench was constituted since Justice (since retired) V Parthiban referred the matter to the CJ for taking a call to decide the jurisdiction of the HC to entertain such pleas.

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