Over a weekend during lockdown, a father called up his daughter for a face-time chat. It was his 15 minutes of court-assigned access, twice weekly. The two-year-old smiled brightly and, after an excited “Hello Papa”, ran off, leaving her estranged parents facing each other in awkward silence.
The couple were abiding by a recent urgent order for online access to the non-custodial parent. With the family court at Bandra shut for almost six weeks, estranged parents, often fathers, are unable to meet their children at the children’s complex in the court. The family court has been taking up only urgent matters via email. Most of these are from parents seeking access to their children via phone calls or through video calls.
“Most of these urgent matters relate to requests for child access via video calls,” said a court official. Non-custodial parents are struggling to maintain contact with their children during the lockdown. “Lack of phone or face-time call access during the lockdown could lead to further alienation since physical access is impossible,” said a father, who had petitioned the family court for urgent access.
Lawyers in Mumbai say they have witnessed a rise in calls from worried parents who had been granted access pre-lockdown. Veteran family court lawyers like Mrinalini Deshmukh, Chitra Phadke and the family court bar chief, Sasi Nair, say they are even fielding calls from parents seeking ways to comply with child access orders.
“It is a sensitive issue. Parents have called and inquired about child access order compliances. Some agreed to let children speak over the phone during the lockdown. I am hopeful some couples may even bond this way and eventually reconcile,” said Nair. Deshmukh said, in some cases, parents were using the lockdown to not grant email or phone call access.
“Child access is already a vexed issue among warring couples,’’ she said, adding, the “lockdown has led to heightened concerns for some.” While it is often fathers, especially when children are pre-schoolers, who are petitioning the court for e-access, in one case, a mother had approached the court.
Advocate Chitra Phadke said the five-year-old was with the father and the wife had been granted physical access four days a week for five hours. When the lockdown was enforced, even before court could pass orders, the father volunteered to give online access.
The mother has also moved for urgent orders to allow her complete access in the summer vacation. In yet another case, a doctor-father, sought urgent access to his two minor sons during the lockdown. He said he had neither seen nor spoken to one of the sons for over 10 months. Two weeks ago, the family court turned down his request, observing the pandemic was a worldwide phenomenon.
He then approached the Bombay high court. His plea was heard on Thursday. In a proceeding held via video conferencing, the court granted him 10-minute videocall interactions thrice a week so that the paternal grandparents could interact with the boys too.
Concerned about the lockdown leading to alienation from the parent who doesn’t have custody of the child, NGO Child Rights Foundation has highlighted the importance of access to the coparent. Both in the UK and Canada, guidelines make it clear that parents with custodial rights should not exploit the lockdown.
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