A district court in Pankow, Germany, refused custody of Ariha Shah, a 28-month-old Indian girl, to her biological parents and handed her to Jugendamt, the German juvenile services in two separate judgments on June 13.
The court rejected Dhara and Bhavesh Shah’s request to have the child returned to them directly or, at the very least, given to a third party, the Indian Welfare Services, and instead handed over the child to Jugendamt. It ruled, “The parents are no longer authorised to decide on the whereabouts of their child.”
The court declared that the Central Youth Welfare Office of Berlin would be responsible for making decisions regarding her whereabouts while acting as her temporary guardian. The parents had first requested her custody, but they later withdrew the motion.
Following that, they asked that full parental custody be restored and that she be delivered to the Indian Welfare Services, with the understanding that she would then be sent to Ashok Jain’s foster home in Ahmedabad. The parents also intended to relocate to India with her.
The court cited two injuries on the head and back that Ariha Shah endured in April 2021 that occurred while she was being washed and a genital injury in September of the same year in refusing custody to her parents or the Indian Welfare Services.
It maintained that in order to “avert the existing danger to the child,” parental care ought to be refused. It further stated that the parents were unable to “explain the events in question in a sufficiently consistent manner” and it reached the conclusion “that the mother and/or father (had) intentionally caused the serious genital injuries to the child.”
The parents already have “the right and duty” to visitation twice each month, “on the first and third Tuesday of each month for 60 minutes (of) accompanied contact,” per the district court’s order. The former requested supervised visitation with their daughter once every two days for 90 minutes in their visitation petition.
However, their plea was rejected noting that while maintaining contact with her parents was necessary for Ariha Shah to have a consistent image of them as she grows, “the development of a bond was no longer in the foreground.”
In order to “not cause any additional irritations in the child’s experience,” it was also underlined that the contact frequency shouldn’t be altered. The court decision pronounced that the child should be given time to develop a bond with her foster parents and that any change in visitation frequency or duration could have “a disturbing effect” on her.
Arindam Bagchi, a spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, pleaded with the German government on June 3 “to do all necessary to send Ariha to India as soon as possible, which is also her inalienable right as an Indian national.”
In a letter to the German ambassador to India, Philipp Ackermann, earlier in June, 59 members of Parliament representing 19 political parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress, the Left, and the Trinamool Congress asked him to take all necessary steps to facilitate the little girl’s return to India as soon as possible.
After the court verdict, the parents flew from Berlin to New Delhi on June 15 to request that the Indian authorities seek Ariha Shah’s repatriation because she is an Indian citizen. Bhavesh Shah voiced, “We plan to appeal in a higher court in Germany but have little hope of getting a fair trial. We were expecting a verdict like this. They did not opine on the reports of experts who defended us, and just gave a one-sided verdict.”
The couple has made a request for Ariha Shah’s return to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). They asserted they had no idea if the Jugendamt would allow visits once she turned three. “And once we lose visitation, if we want to bring her back to India, Ariha herself may not remember us or understand what India is and may refuse to come back. The visitation that has been allowed now is supposed to apply until Ariha settles in with her new foster parents,” Dhara Shah added.
Ariha Shah, the daughter of a Jain couple Bhavesh and Dhara Shah was 7 months old when she was separated from her parents by the authorities of the Germany Child Care Institute after the baby was accidentally hurt by her grandmother. 20 months have passed since then but she has not been returned to her parents.
“Our visitations with Ariha since October 2021 were supervised by a social worker. We constantly received good reports from the social worker. As of September 2022, the social worker observed that the visitations were going well and that they may be increased. Relying on those reports, in September 2022, we went to the family court requesting that the frequency of our visitations should be increased to at least twice a week, but Jugendamt opposed the plea,” Bhavesh reportedly told Indian Express on June 8.
