“No video call business will do,” the Supreme Court said orally as it asked the Centre to bring back the Child Taken To Russia from its custody and produce him before it, calling on the Attorney General, the Solicitor General and all Additional Solicitors General to help.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday (November 3) sought the assistance of the Union’s top law officers to have a five-year-old boy returned and produced before it, taking a strict view of the failure to bring back the child whom his Russian mother allegedly took out of India via Nepal while he was in the Court’s custody [Viktoriia Basu v. State of West Bengal and Ors.].
The mother’s Article 32 habeas corpus petition, in which the Court had earlier passed a series of interim orders on the custody of the child, born in 2020 to the Russian mother and an Indian-origin father, was heard by a Bench of Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Sheel Nagu.
“Our dignity is at stake”
Justice Datta said that while a video call could be arranged, the larger problem was that the child had been taken away from the custody of the Supreme Court itself.
“The larger problem, we would request the assistance of Attorney, Solicitor and all additional Solicitor Generals. A boy has been taken away to Russia from the custody of the Supreme Court of India. This is no ordinary case. When somebody is taken away from the custody of the Supreme Court of India, you have to throw all your weight and get the boy and present him before the Supreme Court. No video call business will do.”
The Court, Justice Datta recalled, had arranged meetings between the mother and the son in Delhi and had taken the child into its custody. The mother, he said, had allegedly escaped with the help of officials of the Russian consulate and left India through Nepal, and the child had not been traceable for about a year. The latest communication, the Bench said, suggested that the Russian Federation may be aware of where the mother and the child are.
“The child may be in safe hands but the bigger issue is that the child is in our custody… The mother has taken away without the permission of the Supreme Court. We are not going to leave it at that. We want the Child back… This is about our institution, our dignity is at stake, our prestige is at stake.”
These remarks were made orally during the hearing. The Bench added that it could have dismissed the petition on the first day, but had shown the mother leniency out of sympathy, and that this did not mean she could take advantage of it.
How the child came to be in the Court’s custody
Earlier orders of the Court had the parents living in separate accommodation in Delhi and sharing custody of the child. On May 22, 2025, the mother was given exclusive custody for three days a week and the father for the rest. The father later moved an application stating that the mother had not been traceable since July 7, 2025, after the child’s school hours, and alleged that she had been seen entering the Russian Embassy with a Russian diplomat on July 4, 2025. These allegations remain untested.
The Supreme Court directed the authorities on July 17, 2025 to trace the mother immediately and restore custody of the child to the father, and cautioned that the law would take its course if Russian Embassy officials were found to be involved in any offence. The child’s Indian passport had been surrendered before the Court, and the Court had earlier indicated that the mother may have left on forged or fabricated documents.
The sealed communication and the order
A note verbale recording the latest communication between the Russian Federation and India had been filed in a sealed cover, the Bench was told. According to the exchange between the External Affairs Ministers of the two countries, a video call could be arranged between the child in Russia and the father in India so that the father could be satisfied that the child is in safe hands.
In its order, the Court recorded that the communication between the Russian authorities and the Ministry of External Affairs had been handed across the bar in a sealed cover and was to be kept in the court records in that form. It said it wished both governments to act as stated in the communication, and noted that Additional Solicitor General Venkataraman had conveyed the Court’s anxiety and the urgent need to bring the child to India.
“In view of the fact that the petitioner allegedly escaped from India through Nepal, and we are prima facie convinced that such an action on the part of the petitioner without permission of this Court, apart from amounting to interference in the administration of justice, would lead to another consequences.”
At the end of the month, the writ petition will be listed again.
Why the hearing matters
More than a custody dispute between two parents is at issue. Once a court takes a child into its protective custody in a habeas corpus proceeding, removing the child without its leave strikes at the authority of the court itself. The Bench’s prima facie view that the alleged flight through Nepal amounts to interference in the administration of justice signals that consequences beyond the custody question may follow.
The hearing also shows the limits of judicial power across borders. With the child believed to be in Russia, the Court has had to rely on diplomatic channels and the Union’s law officers, and has made clear that a video call arranged through those channels cannot substitute for the child’s physical return. The Court has expressed no final view on the allegations against the mother or on custody.
Case Title: Viktoriia Basu v. State of West Bengal and Ors. [W.P.(Crl.) No. 129 of 2023]
Bench: Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Sheel Nagu, Supreme Court of India
Date of Hearing: November 3, 2026
Appearances: Additional Solicitor General Venkataraman for the Union