A US-born child was brought to India. The court ordered him back—but not because of the father's plea.

A 10-year-old American citizen told a judge he wanted to stay in India with his mom. The Supreme Court sent him back to the US anyway—here's why.

The boy’s name was Aarya. He had never left the United States until the day his mother put him on a plane to Bengaluru without telling his father. By the time the Supreme Court heard the case, he had been in India for over two years. He told a High Court judge he was comfortable. He said he wanted to stay.

The court sent him back anyway. Because what Aarya wanted was never the question.

When the mother took the child without consent

Rohith Thammana Gowda and his wife (Respondent No. 3) married in Bengaluru in 2008. They moved to the United States. Both held permanent resident cards. Their son Aarya was born in Washington state in 2011—a naturalized American citizen. The family lived in America for the next nine years. The child’s school bag in Bengaluru was still new; his textbooks in Washington had been worn soft.

Then the marriage cracked. In early 2020, Rohith travelled to India to visit his ailing mother. While he was there, his wife took their son and flew to Bengaluru on 03.03.2020. She did not ask. She did not tell. The father, stranded in a country he had only ever visited, learned of the departure from a phone call that ended in silence.

Rohith filed a habeas corpus petition (a court order that asks: where is this person, and is their detention legal) before the Karnataka High Court. He wanted his son back in the United States. He also approached the Superior Court of Washington, County of King, which passed an ex-parte order for the child's return on 26.10.2020—later vacated on 30.10.2020—followed by a subsequent order in March 2021 directing return, and a contempt order on 29.04.2021. The mother did not comply.

What the High Court did—and why it was wrong

The Karnataka High Court dismissed Rohith’s petition. The judge spoke to Aarya personally. The courtroom fell silent as the boy spoke of his school in Bengaluru, his new friends, his comfort. The child’s voice was soft, but his answer was clear: he wanted to stay. The High Court, exercising its parens patriae jurisdiction (the court's inherent power to act as a guardian for children), decided that the child’s welfare was being served in India.

The father appealed to the Supreme Court.

The bench of Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice C.T. Ravikumar saw a different picture. They found a fundamental error: the High Court had mixed up two entirely different questions. The first question—"what is the child's wish?"—can be answered by talking to the child. The second question—"what is in the best interest of the child?"—requires the court to weigh objective factors, not just the child's stated preference. The High Court had stopped at the first question. It never properly asked the second.

The legal test: citizenship, upbringing, and foreign court orders

The Supreme Court laid down the framework. When a child is a naturalized citizen of a foreign country, born and raised there for a significant period, accustomed to its social and cultural environment, and when foreign courts have already ordered the child’s return, the welfare of the child ordinarily favours return to that country. The reasoning: the child’s citizenship gives him access to better avenues and prospects in his native country. His upbringing has shaped his identity. Removing him permanently from that context, without the consent of both parents, is not in his best interest unless there is very serious, proven conduct that makes the other parent unworthy of custody.

The court cited two key precedents. In Nithya Anand Raghavan v. State (NCT of Delhi) (2017) 8 SCC 454, the Supreme Court had held that the child’s wish is not the same as the child’s welfare. In V. Ravi Chandran v. Union of India (2010) 1 SCC 174, the court had held that when a child is removed from his native country without consent, the court must give due weight to the child’s citizenship, domicile, and the orders of foreign courts. The court also drew from Dhanwanti Joshi v. Madhav Unde (1998) 1 SCC 112 and Mckee v. Mckee (1951) AC 352, which established that the welfare principle must be applied with sensitivity to the child’s roots.

The court also noted that extreme mutual allegations between warring spouses—each accusing the other of misconduct—should not distract from the core inquiry. Unless one parent is proven to be so unfit that custody would harm the child, the question must be decided solely by looking at what would serve the child’s best interest. The father’s handwritten letters from the US, filed in court, spoke of a parent who had not abandoned his child. The mother’s flight itinerary from March 2020 was a document of unilateral action.

Why the mother's arguments failed

The mother argued that the child had settled in Bengaluru, was attending school, and was comfortable. The Supreme Court rejected this. Comfort, the court said, is not the same as welfare. A child can be comfortable in a new environment and still suffer long-term harm from being removed from his native country, his citizenship, and his established life. The mother had also failed to comply with the orders of the US court directing the child’s return. That non-compliance, the court indicated, could not be rewarded by allowing the child to remain in India.

The father, on the other hand, had done everything right. He had filed the habeas corpus petition promptly. He had obtained orders from the US court. He had not abandoned his child. The Supreme Court found no reason to deny him the return of his son.

The order: return to the US within two months

The Supreme Court allowed the father’s appeal in Civil Appeal Nos. 4987 of 2022 (arising out of SLP(C) No. 17166/2021). It set aside the Karnataka High Court’s judgment in WPHC No.76/2020. It directed the mother to ensure that the child returns to the United States forthwith. The court gave two months for the formalities—school transfer, accommodation arrangements if the mother wished to accompany the child, and completion of all necessary paperwork. The smell of old paper from the court file seemed to carry the weight of a child’s future.

The court made it clear: the mother could approach the appropriate US forum for custody or visitation rights. The question of who gets custody of the child in America was not for the Indian courts to decide. The only question for the Supreme Court was whether the child should be in India at all. The answer was no.

THE PLAY: When a child is a naturalized citizen of a foreign country, born and raised there, and removed without the other parent's consent, the Indian court's welfare inquiry must weigh citizenship, upbringing, and foreign court orders—not just the child's expressed wish.

The boy who told a judge he wanted to stay in India was on a plane back to the country he had never stopped belonging to. The courtroom silence that followed his words had not changed the law—it had only reminded the court that a child’s wish is not the same as a child’s welfare.