കോടതിയുടെ കസ്റ്റഡിയിൽ നിന്ന് റഷ്യയിലേക്ക് കടത്തിയ കുട്ടിയെ തിരികെ കൊണ്ടുവരാൻ നയതന്ത്ര ഇടപെടൽ വേണം: സുപ്രീം കോട

The Supreme Court on Tuesday told the Centre to use its entire diplomatic weight to bring back a child illegally removed from the court's custody by his Russian mother, observing that the matter concerned the dignity of the top court that could be restored with the child's return.

The bench said that while the child may be in safe hands, the larger issue raised in the petition concerned the dignity of the highest court in the country.

"We're not going to leave this. Our dignity is at stake. After we had taken the child into our custody, the mother, with the help of the Russian Embassy, went away through Nepal. We feel the Russian Federation is aware of it. You (Centre) have to throw all your weight behind this."

The court was hearing a case concerning Viktoriia Basu, a woman of Russian origin who married an Indian and was bound by a court order for shared custody of her minor child. In July, she reportedly went missing and an investigation by the Delhi Police revealed that she had reached Russia by surreptitiously escaping to Nepal through the porous border in Bihar. Since then, diplomatic efforts to bring back both the woman and child failed to yield results, even as the police claimed the role of Russian Embassy officials in facilitating her return.

A bench of justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu said, "We want the child back. Let the Union of India at the highest level ensure this. This is no ordinary case as a boy has been taken away from the custody of the Supreme Court."

Posting the matter after a month, the bench said, "We are prima facie convinced that the act on the part of the petitioner without obtaining court's permission has serious consequences apart from interfering in the court's process."