Court battles for custody and visitation rights invariably end up with litigants, along with their children, being dragged through the mud..Taking note of the growing trend among parties and lawyers to disclose sensitive details during these proceedings, the Delhi High Court last week refused to allow a personal diary of a child to be admitted as evidence in a case..The case at hand was an appeal against a Family Court order dated June 5 concerning visitation rights of the father. The Family Court granted the appellant father 50% of the vacations of the children during summer break, after an interaction with the children revealed their desire for the same. Nevertheless, the appellant sought to modify the order, seeking permanent custody over the children..Senior Advocate Geeta Luthra, appearing for the appellant before the High Court, argued that the recording of the interaction between the court and the children was incomplete and urged the High Court to interact with the children again. However, the Bench comprising Justices S Muralidhar and IS Mehta held that repeated interactions would not be in the best interests of the children..The Bench further berated the appellant and his lawyers for bringing the children to court when their presence was not required. It stated,.“The adversarial nature of child custody proceedings, and the environment in which they are conducted, have the potential of traumatizing children.”.Turning its attention to one of the children’s personal diary that was submitted as evidence by the appellant, the court said,.“It is not something which should be casually placed in the public domain as it is bound to violate the right to privacy of not only the author of the ‘personal diary’ but others…where litigants themselves do not realize the implications that this has for the right to privacy and dignity of the parties involved in a litigation, the Court expects the lawyers handling the litigation to display that understanding of the legal position…”.The Court went on to issue a list of directions to the Family Courts in Delhi to be followed by lawyers and litigants. The directions include the requirement of a party to apply to the court before producing documents which contain personal information..The Family Courts were also urged to maintain the confidentiality of such documents, conduct sensitive proceedings in camera as often as possible and anonymize the names of the parties in orders uploaded online..(Read the full judgment below).HT to @amlanweb for his tweet.
Court battles for custody and visitation rights invariably end up with litigants, along with their children, being dragged through the mud..Taking note of the growing trend among parties and lawyers to disclose sensitive details during these proceedings, the Delhi High Court last week refused to allow a personal diary of a child to be admitted as evidence in a case..The case at hand was an appeal against a Family Court order dated June 5 concerning visitation rights of the father. The Family Court granted the appellant father 50% of the vacations of the children during summer break, after an interaction with the children revealed their desire for the same. Nevertheless, the appellant sought to modify the order, seeking permanent custody over the children..Senior Advocate Geeta Luthra, appearing for the appellant before the High Court, argued that the recording of the interaction between the court and the children was incomplete and urged the High Court to interact with the children again. However, the Bench comprising Justices S Muralidhar and IS Mehta held that repeated interactions would not be in the best interests of the children..The Bench further berated the appellant and his lawyers for bringing the children to court when their presence was not required. It stated,.“The adversarial nature of child custody proceedings, and the environment in which they are conducted, have the potential of traumatizing children.”.Turning its attention to one of the children’s personal diary that was submitted as evidence by the appellant, the court said,.“It is not something which should be casually placed in the public domain as it is bound to violate the right to privacy of not only the author of the ‘personal diary’ but others…where litigants themselves do not realize the implications that this has for the right to privacy and dignity of the parties involved in a litigation, the Court expects the lawyers handling the litigation to display that understanding of the legal position…”.The Court went on to issue a list of directions to the Family Courts in Delhi to be followed by lawyers and litigants. The directions include the requirement of a party to apply to the court before producing documents which contain personal information..The Family Courts were also urged to maintain the confidentiality of such documents, conduct sensitive proceedings in camera as often as possible and anonymize the names of the parties in orders uploaded online..(Read the full judgment below).HT to @amlanweb for his tweet.
