New Delhi:
Ending weeks of suspense over the whereabouts of AI techie Atul Subhash’s four-year-son, his estranged wife Nikita Singhania told the Supreme Court today that the child is at a boarding school in Haryana’s Faridabad. Nikita’s lawyer added that the child would be taken to Bengaluru where he can stay with his mother.
Thirty-four-year-old Atul Subhash died by suicide in December after accusing Nikita and her family members of harassing him and his parents by filing false cases against them. Nikita, her mother Nisha, and her brother Anurag are facing an abetment to suicide case and are currently out on bail.
Atul’s mother Anju Devi has approached the Supreme Court, seeking custody of her grandson. Nikita’s lawyer told the court today that the four-year-old had been enrolled in a Faridabad boarding school and was there during her mother’s arrest and subsequent bail. The child will, however, need to be shifted to Bengaluru because Nikita needs to be there as per the conditions of her bail.
“We will take the child to Bengaluru. We have taken the boy out of school. The mother has to remain in Bengaluru to fulfill bail conditions,” her lawyer told the bench of Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice N Kotiswar Singh.
The bench then directed that the child must be produced in court in the next hearing.
The lawyer representing Anju Devi told the court that as the grandmother, she should be given custody of the child. The lawyer said a child below six should not be sent to a boarding school.
The bench also noted that the child has barely spent time with his grandmother. “Sorry to say but the child is a stranger to the petitioner,” Justice Nagaratna remarked. Anju Devi’s lawyer said they have pictures of the grandmother interacting with the child when he was two years old. Atul and Nikita married in 2019 and had a son the next year. In 2021, Nikita left their Bengaluru home after an altercation and in 2022, she filed a case against Atul and his family members.
The court also stressed that Nikita Singhania is yet to be proven guilty and that it can’t decide the matter based on a “media trial”.
The bench said that the issue of the child’s custody will have to be taken up in the appropriate court where the trial is on. The next hearing on the matter is on January 20.
Atul Subhash died by suicide at his Bengaluru flat on December 9. In an 81-minute video and a 24-page suicide note, the techie accused Nikita and his family members of filing false cases against him and his parents to extort money from them. He also alleged that the justice system is biased to favour women in such cases.
The incident triggered outrage and a nationwide debate on the misuse of laws created to protect women from cruelty by husband or in-laws.
