Cuttack: The Orissa high court has held that the constitutional remedy of habeas corpus cannot be invoked merely to trace an adult who has chosen to stay away from both her matrimonial and parental homes.“The writ in the nature of habeas corpus cannot be used as a tool for fishing out and/or gathering evidence,” the division bench comprising Chief Justice Harish Tandon and Justice M S Raman observed in an order dated March 9 and uploaded on Tuesday.The ruling came while the bench dismissed a habeas corpus petition filed by a mother seeking to ascertain the whereabouts of her adult daughter, holding that the woman had voluntarily chosen to live independently and was not under illegal confinement.The bench added: “The writ of habeas corpus cannot be used as a forum to achieve something which is not permissible and, therefore, the writ petition is dismissed.”The mother had approached the court stating that the family had been unable to ascertain the whereabouts of her daughter, who is in her early-twenties, for over a year and that they were worried about her existence.“Since the daughter is not in wrongful or illegal confinement and/or detention and if she has decided to live independently having attained majority, we do not find any impediment in such a decision to have been created,” the bench said.The court further held that the law cannot compel an adult to maintain contact with family members. “She is capable of taking a decision of her life and if she has decided to live on her own and intended to keep distance from the matrimonial home as well as the parental home, we do not find that the law would compel her to keep in touch with either in-laws or her parents,” the bench said.
