Seven-year-old Tatan (name changed) does not know which country’s law will decide whether he will live with his father or his mother.

Born in Pennsylvania, US, of Indian parents who later separated, the boy is at the centre of custody battles in both countries. And no one knows which verdict will hold.

Tatan, who now lives in his maternal uncle’s home in Salt Lake, is among at least 10 children in the city caught in custody tussle in courts in India as well as in the UK or US. Their parents married in India and lived in the US or UK before separating. One of the parents then returned to the homeland and filed a custody suit. And there are several custody tussles that have not yet reached court.

“The Supreme Court has ruled that a child below 14 years should be in his mother’s custody. After completion of 14 years, it is up to the child to choose between his parents. But, in UK and US courts, there is no hard and fast rule in this regard. The courts there have been empowered to select a child’s custodian,” advocate Rabishankar Chatterjee said.

Bhagabati Prasad Banerjee, a retired judge of Calcutta High Court, said: “In such cases one will have to see which court had first issued the order of summons to the parents. If a US court does so, the parents have to appear there.”

Foreign courts assert that the laws followed in their countries should govern the children born there. But, according to Calcutta High Court, since the parents had married in India, the Indian law should be applicable to their children, even if they were born in the US or UK.

“After returning to Calcutta, either the husband or the wife files a case demanding the child’s custody. Their former spouses, either in the US or UK, file similar custody cases there,” said Biswajit Basu, a Calcutta High Court advocate fighting five such cases.

“In many countries, especially in the US, separated parents have equal rights to the custody of their children,” he added.

Tatan’s case illustrates the problem. His parents Sunita and Bipul married in Calcutta in 1998 and settled in Pennsylvania the year after. Tatan was born there in 2001.

In 2003, Sunita left her husband and returned to Calcutta along with her baby. Bipul moved a Pennsylvania court demanding the child’s custody. Sunita also filed a similar case in Calcutta High Court.

Sunita failed to appear before the Pennsylvania court, which had summonsed her. So, it issued a contempt rule against Sunita, advocate S. Mookherjee, appearing for her in the high court, said.

Justice Indira Banerjee of the high court observed that since Sunita and Bipul got married in Calcutta, their children should be governed by the Indian law. The judge issued another order asking Bipul to come to Calcutta and contest the case.