CHACKO PULPARAMPIL Vs. MARGARETTE MARIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These Civil Miscellaneous Petitions are the aftermath of a Full Bench judgment of this Court in O. P. No. 71 of 1968 reported in 1969 KLT 174 . One of the questions considered in that judgment was with whom, the father or the mother, the custody of two infants, Konstanze born on the 15th July 1964, and Thomas Markus born on the 22nd February 1966, should be entrusted in exercise of the jurisdiction of this Court as parens patriae, in the best interests and for the welfare of the infants. We then came to the conclusion that the custody must be with the mother subject to certain conditions mentioned in Para.27 of the judgment which we may extract:

(2.) The infants left India under the custody of the mother in April 1969. So under condition No. 6 in Para.27 of the judgment they were due to be brought to India in April 1972. Also, under condition No. 3, the mother was obliged to obtain and forward, once in every three months, reports from the Parish Priest within the Parish in which the mother and children lived, giving sufficient details about the children, their health and welfare, with a copy to the father.

(3.) On the ground that the above conditions in Para.27 of the judgment bad not been honoured by the mother, an affidavit dated 4th June 1972 was filed in this Court, along with the petition C. M. P. No. 10913 of 1972, on the 5th July 1972. This affidavit was sworn to at Louisville, Kentucky 40218, U.S.A Somewhat inconsistent with the concluding part of the affidavit requesting this Court to take steps to enforce the provisions regarding the safeguards embodied in the judgment, it is prayed in the accompanying petition that "the judgment as contemplated therein be reviewed and cancelled and the children returned unconditionally to their father".