Dispose of children's custody cases in 6 months: HC to family courts

The High Court today directed family courts to dispose of cases -- filed over the custody of children -- in six months.

The law secretary and Supreme Court registrar general have been asked to communicate the directive to the family courts concerned.

The bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Md Mostafizur Rahman delivered the verdict following a writ petition filed by a mother of a child in Rangpur seeking custody from her divorced husband.

The bench ordered the family court in Dhaka to finish the trial proceedings of the case filed by the writ petitioner by March 31 next year.

It also asked the father of the child to allow her mother to visit the child at her convenience during the trial proceedings of the case.

Writ petitioner's lawyer Md Motaher Hossain Sazu and Deputy Attorney General Bepul Bagmar told The Daily Star that the HC directed the family courts to dispose of the cases over the custody of children in six months since many such cases have been pending with these courts for long periods (two to three years) without any trial.

There is no specific time limit in the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance, 1961 to finish the trial of proceedings of the case, they said.

Sazu said the writ petitioner, a woman from Rangpur, married a man from Rajshahi in 2011 and they had a daughter in 2015. But, they divorced each other in 2018 and since then the child was living with her father.

The mother filed a case with the family court in Dhaka seeking custody of the child. As the family court failed to settle the case, she submitted the writ petition with the HC this year, the lawyer added.

Lawyer Fawzia Karim Firoze appeared for the father of the child during the hearing.