Legal Flaw Exposed as Family Court Orders Police to Seize Daughter

A recent ruling by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court has highlighted a procedural fault in a family court order that instructed police to seize a five‑year‑old girl and hand her over to her mother.

Justice Rahul Bharati noted that the family court’s decision to issue a search warrant without hearing the father and without a comprehensive investigation revealed both a legal flaw and a lack of sensitivity.

The case originated from a petition filed under Article 227 by Shadab Hussain Mir, challenging the family court’s June 29, 2026 resolution directing the Chanapora police station’s SHO to recover the child.

The divorce decree dated January 25, 2025 granted the mother custody, with a clause that custody would revert to the father if the mother remarried. After the mother’s second marriage, the father assumed care of the child.

The High Court stressed that the father was complying with the settlement and that the shift in custody was not per se illegal.

Justice Bharati condemned the family court for acting unilaterally, issuing a search warrant without the father’s presence, and for sending regular police to the father’s home, a move that displayed judicial insensitivity.

He suggested that, if the child’s return was truly required, the court should have employed a women’s police cell or other child‑friendly procedures rather than a standard police raid.

The judgment also raised the question of whether the Family Courts Act, 1984 allows a family court to use powers under Section 100 of the Indian Penal Code, a jurisdiction the court reserved for district and sessions judges.