ISLAMABAD: Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to Jamshed Siddiqui, a resident of Gujranwala, in a plea moved by Maimouna Liskauskaite, a Lithuanian national seeking custody of her three children.
The chief justice also directed the Gujranwala DPO to make sure effective services of the notice and produce the minors, namely, Maryam Siddique, Ayesha Siddique and Amna Siddique aged 13, 11 and 9 respectively before this court on April 2.
Maimouna Liskauskaite, currently residing in Dubai, UAE, and now on a visit to Pakistan, filed a petition seeking recovery of her daughters, from the alleged improper custody of her former husband Jamshed Siddiqui. On Friday, outside the Supreme Court, the lady while holding pictures of her three daughters requested the chief justice office to take notice of the alleged illegal custody of her daughters.
The chief justice summoned her through counsel in his chamber after office hours, and directed the office to register the case and fix it before him and Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan in chamber. The counsel pleaded before the bench that her client was previously a follower of Christian faith, embraced Islam on January 7, 2004, out of her own free will and contracted marriage with respondent Jamshed Siddiqui in accordance with the Islamic rites.
The marriage between the parties was solemnized in Lithuania City; that out of said wedlock, three minor daughters were born; that on December 19, 2010, the petitioner and her husband along with their minor daughters settled in Dubai, the counsel added.
The counsel alleged that on April 4, 2011, Jamshed Siddiqui along with minors came to Pakistan without knowledge of the petitioner and left her alone in Dubai. That on April 7, 2011, Jamshed divorced her and forcibly removed the minors from her lawful custody and that according to law, she was entitled to custody of her minor daughters.
Later, after going through the arguments placed by the petitioner’s counsel, the bench directed the Ministry of Interior Affairs to make sure that the custody of the minors should not be removed from the jurisdiction of this court and issued the notices to the respondents.
