NEW DELHI: Nine-year-old Nalanda had no hesitation in telling the Supreme Court on Wednesday that she would like to stay with her mother, little realising that her wishes were diametrically opposite to the orders of a US court, which had asked her mother to give her back her father.
The minor’s wishes weighed more with the Supreme Court. It directed that the mother would have the interim custody of Nalanda, even if it amounted to virtually overriding the US court order asking the mother to bring back the child so that she could be handed over to her US-based father.
Searching for a solution in the face of conflicting orders from the US court and a Kolkata court on ‘who should have interim custody of Nalanda’, a bench comprising Justices C K Thakker and L S Panta decided to ascertain her views, for it was anguished that neither of the courts had paid attention to an important aspect
