New Delhi: Noting that a mother-child relationship is sacrosanct, Delhi High Court has ended criminal proceedings for attempt to murder against an adopted daughter for attacking her mother.The court took into account that the mother wanted to forgive the adopted daughter, and they reached an out-of-court compromise. “If justice is ever to be tempered with mercy, this is a fit case... That profound sentiment must, in the peculiar facts of this case, transcend any societal or public interest in securing the petitioner’s conviction,” Justice Prateek Jalan observed last week. The court pointed out that “most importantly, the dispute is in the nature of a family dispute” since the relationship between the parties “is akin to a mother-and-child relationship, a relationship that is socially recognised as singular and sacrosanct”.Hearing their plea to quash an FIR, HC recorded that the young woman had apologised for her past conduct, including for the attack on her mother, and expressed gratitude for the family’s love and care. The daughter will, however, have no right, title, interest, concern or connection with any assets of the mother.The girl was an orphan being looked after by Missionaries of Charity. When she was about three months old, the complainant and her husband were permitted by a court to be appointed as her guardians under Guardians and Wards Act, 1890.The FIR was registered after the daughter attacked the complainant on her head with a wooden cross while she was praying, and also bit her hands, injured her eye and in the abdomen using a knife.HC said it was “clear that the relationship…, though not legally that of a parent and child, was no different from such a relationship, socially and emotionally”. Justice Jalan observed that the mother “recounted in her affidavit the dynamics of that relationship, which included rough patches…beginning in the petitioner’s teenage years. However, such elements are not unusual in parent-child relationships”.The court ordered the young woman to do community service and asked her to report to St Stephen’s Hospital.
