Mom fights to regain custody of son in India (Chicago, Illinois)

Dad VIKRAM AKULA is obviously very wealthy and powerful. But the mother was still able to get sole custody after their divorce in 2001, probably because there was a history of domestic violence. Note that Dad was convicted of domestic battery in 2004.

Mom went on to form a Chicago-based domestic violence organization. But due to what sounds like a lot of convoluted trickery, the father still had visitation, and the mother was required to take her son to India to comply. The father was then able to secure sole custody in India. The mother is now fighting to get her son back.

http://www.indiawest.com/readmore.aspx?id=2112&sid=1

Chicago Mom Fights to Regain Custody of Son in India
By SUNITA SOHRABJI
indiawest.com March 31, 2010 07:09:00 PM

In a case that pits the founder of a Chicago-based domestic abuse organization against the powerful head of the world’s second-largest microfinance company, the Indian Supreme Court March 26 will decide if it has jurisdiction in a custody battle over a nine-year-old boy.

Concurrently, an Illinois court, determining whether it can retain jurisdiction in the case, is expected to make its decision by the end of this month.

Chicago attorney Malini Byanna, founder of the Lotus Rising Foundation which works to support victims of domestic abuse, is opposing her former husband Vikram Akula, founder and chairman of Hyderabad-based SKS Microfinance, for custody of their son Tejas.

The couple divorced in 2001. Byanna founded Lotus Rising after Akula was convicted of domestic battery in 2004.

Akula, who founded SKS Microfinance in 1995, was named by Time magazine in 2006 as one of “Time’s 100: The People Who Shape Our World.”

The World Economic Forum last year named Akula a young global leader, and in February, he spoke at the WEF in Davos, Switzerland, on millennium development goals.

Michael DiDomenico, an associate with Lake Toback which is representing Akula in the U.S., told India-West the firm had no comment on the case.

Byanna, 41, was awarded sole custody of Tejas when the couple divorced. The boy lived with Byanna in Chicago until last summer when the two went to India on a visitation order from a U.S. court, and stayed on after Tejas fell ill and could not safely travel back to the U.S.

Tejas was enrolled in a local school and Byanna returned home early from the trip for a minor surgery, but she soon discovered that Akula had filed papers in India for custody of Tejas. He was awarded full custody of his son in October by a lower court.

“Tejas has been ripped from the only mother he has ever known, who spent 8½ years raising him, nurturing him, and loving him, unwaveringly and unconditionally, only for him to be stolen from her,” Malini Byanna told India-West on the eve of a flight to India to attend the Supreme Court hearing.

“His father and his father’s family are using money, influence, and power to bankrupt and debilitate me and my family into backing down,” she charged.

“This is a very significant decision that’s going to come out of Illinois,” Marvin Leavitt, partner at Grund Leavitt which is representing Byanna, told India-West.

“These types of cases are going to become more and more of a problem as the world gets smaller and there’s more movement between nations,” he said.

For India to assume jurisdiction over Tejas, the Supreme Court must decide that Byanna was a resident of India and not a resident of the U.S., explained Leavitt, noting that both Tejas and Byanna are U.S. citizens.

Byanna continued to have a functioning U.S. address and law practice here when she and Tejas went to India last summer, but said she was “convinced” by her ex-husband to sign a lease for a home there. She also applied for a four-year residency permit in India, all at Akula’s behest, alleged Byanna.

Hamid Khan, president of the Southern California-based South Asian Network, said he has seen a persistent pattern of such cases over the past few years. “The forced separation of a parent from her child – especially among women — is unfortunately becoming more common,” he told India-West.

There are few resources available to women in these transnational court cases, said Khan, noting that the legal system tends to place the onus of truth on the person who is already suffering.

“Often, the person who has the most access to resources buys the legal system in their favor, both here and in India,” said Khan.

Once children are in the home country, it is very difficult to get U.S. orders enforced, agreed Sutapa Balaji, program manager at the Berkeley, Calif.-based women’s help organization Narika.

“It is always a challenge for mothers,” Balaji told India-West, noting that cases are often complicated by underlying immigration issues. “The court system doesn’t necessarily look at who’s been the caregiver for all those years.” She advised women to inform police and the local Indian consulate if they are experiencing domestic violence, to create a paper trail showing that they are not running away from the U.S. legal system.

When she was three years old, Byanna moved from Bangalore to the U.S. with her family in 1971. She has lived in northwest Chicago since the age of five. Tejas was born in Elk Grove, a suburb of Chicago.

Byanna met Akula in 1996 at a fundraiser, and told India-West that he courted her for more than three years before proposing in 1999.

Byanna is allowed to chat with her son via Skype, who, she said, has asked her several times to return to the U.S., where he is a Boy Scout involved in soccer, karate and attending the Catholic church.