Children’s plea to keep parents together: Kerala HC seeks report

Kochi: Moved by an incident in which three siblings reportedly approached the Palakkad district collector seeking assistance to keep their parents together amid a deteriorating marital relationship, the Kerala high court has sought a report from the principal district and sessions judge, Palakkad.Justice P V Kunhikrishnan, who holds administrative charge of Palakkad district judiciary, on Tuesday sought a detailed report from principal district and sessions judge K E Salih after noticing media reports concerning the incident.Reportedly, three siblings — two girls aged 12 and 10, and an eight-year-old boy — from Aanakkara in Thrithala, along with their 12-year-old cousin, the daughter of their father's sister, and their grandfather, approached the district collector around noon on Monday with an appeal to help keep their parents together. According to the children, their mother was unwilling to continue living with their father and she wanted their custody. However, the siblings expressed their wish to remain together as a family.The children had visited their mother abroad along with their father during Vishu holidays. They later alleged that their mother neglected them during the visit and barely interacted with them. After returning home, the family situation allegedly worsened, with their father resorting to alcoholism, leaving the children emotionally distressed and increasingly isolated from friends and relatives.According to media reports, the children's mother recently returned to Kerala and allegedly asked them to live with her separately, excluding their father. This reportedly aggravated the situation further and prompted the children to approach the district collector. The children reportedly stated that they would go with their mother only if their father was also allowed to stay with them. Before approaching the collector, the children had reportedly approached the child welfare committee in connection with ongoing family disputes and police cases involving their family, which they claimed had emotionally exhausted them.The collector, meanwhile, has reportedly arranged counselling facilities for them with the support of the child protection unit under the state women and child development department. ‘Children cannot be used as pawns'HC's intervention in the incident once again draws attention to the emotional burden often borne silently by children amid strained marital relationships and custody disputes. Recently, a division bench headed by Justice Devan Ramachandran, while considering a family matter relating to child custody, orally observed that children cannot be used as "pawns" in disputes arising out of fractured relationships between parents. "How can you use your son or daughter as a weapon, as a pawn in the game that you are playing? If you are doing property dealings with your child, you are a bad parent," HC had orally remarked.