IMPORTANT POINT
The court found no deliberate contempt by the mother regarding custody orders, emphasizing the need for valid justifications for non-compliance.

JUDGMENT :

DEVAN RAMACHANDRAN, J.

William Congreve, in the Mourning Bride (1697), said famously that ‘heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned’; and we are now reminded of this because, we see its exemplification in many cases involving matrimonial disputes and custody of children. Spouses fight each other with every weapon in their arsenal, when love turns to hatred; and travel great distances for what they perceive to be in validation of a combination of ego, frustration and despair.

2. The facts involved in these cases are no different, where the petitioner – former husband of the respondent, seeks criminal action against the latter on the imputation that she has violated certain earlier orders.

3. We are considering these four Original Petitions together, since they involve the same parties, impel analogous circumstances and arise out of a judgment which has been delivered by the learned Family Court, North Paravur, disposing of different interim applications.

4. Without recording unnecessary details, an Original Petition has been filed by the petitioner herein before the learned Family Court, seeking custody of his 7 year old child; and he obtained certain orders, granting him day visitation on 2nd and 4th Saturdays. The petitioner alleges that these orders have been violated by the respondent – mother on certain such Saturdays, citing one untenable reason after the other; thus denying him the custody of the child on such days. He, thereupon, filed the applications, from which, the impugned orders have arisen, seeking that necessary action under the Contempt of Court Act, 1971, be taken against her and to punish her “for willful disobedience of Court orders, granting interim custody of the child to him” (sic).

5. The respondent – mother, however, contested the applications saying that she has never deliberately violated any order of the learned Family Court, nor does she intend to do so; and that the child is still going with the petitioner on 2nd and 4th Saturdays as ordered, but that on the specific days mentioned in the interim applications in question, the child was unable to go, either because of illness or compelling academic reasons; but that every time, and as is even today, she fears going with him, or to be in his presence and thus refuses. The respondent says that she does not know why the child behaves so; but that the latter is now severely tormented by even the thought of having to go with the petitioner on Saturdays; however, that, in spite of this, she pushes her to do so, notwithstanding her remonstrance, only because she has full deference to the orders of the Court. She adds that she has also moved appropriate applications for modification of the orders of the learned Family Court, North Paravur; but concedes that it has not been yet taken up or disposed of.

6. We have heard the petitioner, appearing in person; and Sri.Aparna Nair – learned Counsel for the respondent.

7. The petitioner and the learned Counsel for the respondent reiterated the afore submissions on behalf of their clients; which, we see, are also part of the pleadings. But, the petitioner employs a twist, saying that his real intention is not to send the respondent to jail for contempt, but to obtain compensation from her for the violation she has committed; which he proposes to invest in buying what his daughter likes, to gift it to her.

8. The singular question before us today is whether we can find the respondent guilty of any action, which will come within the umbra of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, or under the provisions of Order XXXIX, Rule 2A, read with Section 151, of the Code of Civil Procedure, as has been imputed for by the petitioner.

9. The foundational edifice on which the petitioner builds his case, to seek action as above against the respondent, is that, she had refused to allow the child to be with him on certain days in the past, in spite of the orders of the learned Family Court; and that this has been done with the sing