One of the few things that caught the internet's eye this week was the trailer of Rani Mukherjee-starrer 'Mrs Chatterjee Vs Norway'. While Mukherjee's fans and the Bollywood fraternity came out in full force to hail her splendid performance in the emotional drama, the real-life incident on which the movie was based, the Sagarika Bhattacharya Vs Norway case, once again hogged the limelight.
Sagarika Bhattacharya's legal fight with the Norway government after the country's Child Welfare Services (CWS) took away her children was the talk of the town in early 2011. The Norwegian CWS had alleged that Sagarika, who was then living in the Scandinavian country with her husband, was "unfit" to be a mother. They flagged issues like parents sleeping in the same bed as children and using hands to feed the children, which the Norwegian authorities equated to force-feeding, to justify their stance.
The case eventually came to the notice of the India Government which intervened in the matter. Following this, the children were sent back to India. A year later, Sagarika Bhattacharya finally won rights over the children.
While Sagarika's battle has always been fodder for the media, the Rani Mukherjee film thrust into the limelight a similar incident involving a Gujarat couple, being played out in Berlin at the moment.
The girl is the daughter of Bhavesh and Dhara Shah from Ahmedabad, had been working as a software engineer in Germany on a work visa.
In September 2021, the German authorities took her away, alleging sexual assault. According to the couple, the child's grandmother hurt her by accident in September last year. When they took her to a hospital, the authorities took the child away to place her in foster care.
Though a criminal investigation was launched, it was closed without charges in February 2022. But, the couple is yet to get custody of their child. Adding to their woes, Berlin Child Services approached the court asking for parental rights to be terminated, said a report that appeared on NDTV.
As per the latest reports, the German court also dismissed Shahs' request to allow one parent to stay with their daughter in the foster home. According to the authorities, the foster home did not have a place to host another person till August.
The case did come to the attention of EAM S Jaishankar who said in December that the Government of India has been "intervening and engaging with the German authorities on the matter for over a year, since September 2021."
Jaishankar raised the issue to his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock, who said that the case is still pending in court. "After the verdict, there can be a review, but for us what is most important, the first priority is the wellbeing of the child," Baerbock said.
However, the Shahs fear that the German Child Services are dragging the case to take advantage of the "continuity principle" of child law, under which if a child has spent a significant time with the state-appointed carer, it is said to be settled there and should not be shifted back to the parents, even if they are found to be fit.
They are also concerned that the German child services are completely insensitive to the child's cultural and religious identity - she comes from a Jain family - and is serving her meat.