Indian American fails to get son's custody

2010-01-02

An Indian American man is making desperate efforts to get custody of his seven-year-old son, who remains untraced even after the Supreme Court ruled that the boy and his mother should go back to the US.

V. Ravichandran, who is currently residing here, fears for the safety of Aditya as his ex-wife Vijayasree Voora is taking him from one city to another.

Ravichandran said at a news conference here that Vijayasree was not only flouting the court order but was even using police in Chennai to threaten him.

It was in October last year that on the directions of the Supreme Court, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) traced Aditya to Chennai and produced him before the court.

The apex court Nov 17 ordered Vijayasree, a Green Card holder, to take Aditya back to the US so that his father gets equal access to him.

Ravichandran, who had been fighting a legal battle in India for 30 months to get custody of his son, said the two Chennai addresses which his ex-wife had given to the CBI proved fictitious.

He alleged that Vijayasree's father Narayana Voora threatened him at a police station in Chennai in the presence of an assistant commissioner of police and asked him to stop pursuing the custody of Aditya.

Ravichandran, a pharmaceutical scientist, intends to again move the Supreme Court.

He also appealed to the people to help him trace his son and launched a website www.rescueaditya.org.

Ravichandran, also hailing from Chennai, married Vijayasree, a double masters in IT and French, in 2000.

The couple was staying in Dallas. Aditya was born in New York in 2002. However, the couple divorced in 2005 and a US court in April 2007 ruled equal custody of the child. Two months later Vijayasree came to India with Aditya.

Bangalore-based Children's Rights Initiative For Shared Parenting (CRISP) is backing Ravichandran.

'Vijayasree is taking undue advantage of being a woman and a mother. We are not anti-woman. We are fighting for the rights of children, who should have equal access to their fathers,' said CRISP president Kumar V. Jahgirdar.

'At a time when divorce rate is increasing and 30 percent marriages in cities are breaking up it is time the society realise the importance of father. The father is not only for giving maintenance. He should also have a right to equal custody of the children,? said Kumar, who himself fought a long legal battle to get equal access to his daughter from his wife Chetana, who is now married to former Indian cricket captain Anil Kumble.