CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has directed a woman to hand over her infant boy to her husband after it was brought to its notice through a video footage that the child was subjected to cruelty, torture and assault by her.
The incident, which took place at a village under Gop police limits in Puri district involving 15-month-old boy being kicked mercilessly for several minutes by his mother, had hit the national headlines after a CCTV footage on it went viral on social media in September, 2020.
The division bench of Justice SK Mishra and Justice Savitri Ratho said, “In this situation, we having given our anxious thought to the matter in question have come to the conclusion that continuance of the custody of the toddler Rajesh alias Rudra Nayak with the mother Rojalin Nayak would be detrimental to his mental and physical development and may also affect his psychology negatively”.
Chakradhar Nayak, who is engaged in retail business while staying in his sister’s house in Bhubaneswar, had filed a petition seeking his son’s custody.
The video that had gone viral in social media was also shown to the court when the petition was taken up through video conference on January 12.
The court directed Gop IIC to secure attendance of Rojalin along with the child through virtual mode on Friday.
When the court interacted with Rojalin, she clearly stated that since she is the mother of the child, she has right to assault him and in any situation will not hand him over to her husband.
The bench ordered, “We direct Rojalin Nayak to hand over the child Rajesh to Chakradhar within a period of seven days. In case of her failure to do so, the IIC shall take appropriate steps and take the child from the physical custody of Rojalin and hand over the child to Chakradhar”.