The child's citizenship and residence, along with the jurisdiction of the court where the child ordinarily resides, determine custody rights in international custody disputes.

JUDGMENT :

V. SRINIVAS, J.

1. This Civil Miscellaneous Appeal is directed against the Order and decree dated 01.08.2022 passed by the IV Additional District Court, Kakinada in Guardian O.P.No. 61 of 2019.

2. The appellant herein is the husband/respondent. For the sake of convenience, the parties herein are referred to as they are arrayed before the trial Court.

3. The respondent herein/wife filed a petition under Section 7 and 25 of Guardian and Wards Act and Section 6 of Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, before the trial court against her husband/appellant herein, seeking custody of their minor child by name Akshaya.

4. The case of the respondent/wife herein in brief is as follows:

(i) The marriage between the appellant and respondent took place as per Hindu rites and customs on 8-10-2009 in Hotel Iswarya Grand, Kakinada Immediately after their marriage, they started living at USA. The appellant started harassing her for additional dowry of Rs.1 crore and used to ill-treat her by beating, slapping, and abusing indiscriminately at the instance of his parents and forced her to resign her job and withdraw her working visa, on which the visa was converted to a ‘dependent’ visa. During her pregnancy, he caused mental torture and caused immense fear and insecurity for her life. Due to his intimidating behavior, her blood pressure reached uncontrollable, and he is not supported for her health care. He installed secret cameras preventing her privacy.

(ii) She gave birth to a minor baby on 5-4-2018 and she was named Akshaya. Whenever she is asking about the baby’s basic needs and doctor appointments, he gets wild and one occasion, he did not allow her to touch the baby and he would forcefully snatch the baby from her and another occasion, he pushed her away from the baby while himself and his father were drunk.

(iii) On one occasion she went to the hospital leaving the baby with him, after she came back, she noticed that her four months old baby was seen precariously hanging over his leg. On questioning, he abused her. He compelled and coerced her to co-operate for mutual divorce in USA, if failure he will harm the life of baby and put her to severe fear in this regard, on which he compelled to sign on divorce paper.

(iv) The respondent made false promises that he is planning to travel to India for her and baby and stated that he is withdrawing divorce proposal, on which she was prepared to come to India. But in the last minute, he informed that the baby’s passport is not yet ready and asked her to leave alone for India and in two days he will come to India along with the baby. Believing his words, she came to India and waiting for them. Thereafter, she came to know that she was deceiving by him with false representations.

(v) As she is on dependent visa came to India, she is unable to enter USA, as such she is not in a position even to go back to USA for the baby. She made all efforts to convince him, but he is adamant in that regard. She is living with her parents at Kakinada with a fond hope he will bring her baby to Kakinada. But the appellant illegally and forcibly detained the minor away from her custody. The respondent has no right to detain or retain the minor forcibly in his illegal custody, as the minor is expected to reside with the mother where she ordinarily resides.

5. The appellant/husband herein denied the case by filing his counter and his case is as follows:

(i) He has not taken any dowry from the respondent at the time of marriage and after the marriage or at any point of time, he never harassed her for the sake of money and never accessed any money from her accounts. The petitioner, with a view to harassing him and squeeze money from him and with evil moto filed this petition with false and untenable allegations.

(ii) The petitioner and her parents asked him for divorce in month of July 2018, as she is not happy with the marriage, but he tried to convince her and her parents, but they did not heed his words, thus he filed a