It is not often that the Madras High Court constitutes a five-judge Bench. One such Bench was constituted this year to answer a significant question of law — Whether guardianship and child custody petitions should be filed only before the family courts or can they be filed in the Madras High Court, too, by invoking its inherent parens patriae jurisdiction over minors?
Justices P.N. Prakash, R. Mahadevan, M. Sundar, N. Anand Venkatesh and A.A. Nakkiran heard marathon arguments for months by a battery of lawyers, with one section arguing in favour of the concurrent jurisdiction by the High Court as well as the family courts and the other contending that the jurisdiction of the High Court stands ousted after the enactment of the Family Courts Act, 1984.
