Should parents denied custody be allowed to talk daily?

In the judgement of Yashitasahu v/s state of Rajasthan In which husband and wife who resided in The USA filed a divorce case in which Joint custody of the child was given to both husband and wife to stay with the child for alternate periods. The wife bought the child to India and filed for sole custody proceeding in theRajasthan High court for custody of child. Aggrieved by the High courts judgement the wife appealed to the Supreme Courtand the husband, in response filed a writ petition of Habeas corpus to send the child back to US and the wife to appear for proceedings in the court there. The court upheld the husbands writ petition and dismissed the wifes appeal.

The Supreme Court held that:-

Holding it to be a basic human right of a child to get love and affection of both the parents who are estranged and locked in matrimonial dispute, the Supreme Court said that the parent denied custody of the child should have the right to talk to him or her for 5-10 minsevery day.

The Bench of Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose also spoke about sufficient visitation rights to ensure that the child keeps in touch with the other parent and does not lose social, physical and psychological contact with any of the two parties.Contact Rights are also important for development of the child specially in cases where both parents live in different states or countries. The concept of contact rights in the modern age would be contact by telephone, email, the best one of all being Videoconferencing.

 

Click here to view judgement