The welfare of the child is the paramount consideration in determining custody disputes.

1. The matter here concerns the mother s claim for custody of her nine years son Navreet Sidhu (also known as Ricky Sidhu) and six years old daughter Preeti Sidhu, founded upon the order of the Supreme Court of Ontario (Canada), granting her interim custody of the children. Both these children were born in Canada and they and their parents are Canadian citizens.

2. The petitioner Mrs. Kuldeep Sidhu and her husband Gurbachan Singh were married in India in 1975 and have, thereafter, been living in Canada. Navreet Sidhu, their son was born in 1978 and their daughter Preeti Sidhu in 1981.

3. Sometime in 1984, the petitioner s husband Gurbachan Singh brought his son Navreet Sidhu to India and left him at his father s house in Jagraon (Punjab). About a year and half later, he brought his daughter to India too and left her here. Both the children were admitted in a nearby school and have been studying there since then. Towards the end of 1986, their father Gurbachan Singh came and took them back to Canada.

4. It appears that in the meanwhile relations between the petitioner and her husband became strained and they started living apart. The petitioner then approached the court and on Nov. 21, 1986, obtained an order, Annexure- P/1 from the Supreme Court of Ontario granting her interim custody of the children. This order also restrained the father from removing the children from the Province of Ontario. According to the petitioner, on getting to know of this order, her husband Gurbachan Singh, on that very day, came away from Canada with the children and brought them to his father s house in Jagraon and that is where they have been ever since. To controvert this, the respondent has now placed on record an affidavit of the father Gurbachan Singh to the effect that this order of the court of Nov. 21, 1986 was obtained by the petitioner, a day after he had left Canada with the children to return to India.

5. Be that as it may, the fact remains that there is an order of the competent court granting custody of the children to the mother and restraining the father from taking them out of the jurisdiction of that Court. The children being in India and then not with their mother, is clearly contrary to the terms of that order.

6. According to the petitioner, when she learnt that the children had been wrongfully taken away by her husband, she reported the matter to the police and on her own too tried to locate them.

7. In October 1987 the petitioner s husband eventually returned to Canada and on arrival, he was arrested by the police and charged with kidnapping of the children. He was, however, subsequently released on bail, but his passport was impounded and he was also restrained from going out of the jurisdiction of the said Court. The order passed in this behalf being of Oct. 29, 1987, Annexure- P/2.

8. It was thereafter that the petitioner came to India in Nov. 1987. On reaching here, she contacted the respondent her father-in-law, Chanan Singh and asked for the custody of the children, but he refused to hand them over to her on the plea that he had no such instructions from his son the father of the children.

9. Faced with this situation, the petitioner, moved the District Judge, Ludhiana by filing an application under Sec.44A of the Civil P.C. on Dec. 7, 1987 seeking execution thereby of the order passed by the Supreme Court of Ontario on Nov. 21, 1986. This matter is still pending before that Court.

10. The respondent, on his part, on the very next day, that is, Dec. 8, 1987 filed a suit for injunction in the court of the Additional Senior Subordinate Judge, Jagraon on behalf of the two minor children seeking to restrain thereby the petitioner from forcibly removing the children from his custody. On Dec. 10, 1987, the court issued a temporary injunction against the petitioner. The relevant extract of the order being as under : -

"The defendants are restrained from forcibly removing or cause the plaintiffs any harm throug