Man seeks Rs 1.5 cr from mother for abandoning him 38 yrs ago

Mumbai: A 40-year-old man has moved the Bombay High Court against his biological mother and sought a compensation of Rs 1.5 crore from her for abandoning him in Mumbai when he was two years’ old and later refusing to accept him as her son.

The petitioner, Srikant Sabnis, a make-up artist, has said he underwent a life full of agony and mental trauma after being intentionally abandoned in an unknown city, for which his mother Aarti Mhaskar and her second husband Uday Mhaskar (Sabnis’s step-father) need to compensate.

As per the plea, Aarti Mhaskar was earlier married to one Deepak Sabnis. The couple had a child, Srikant Sabnis, in February 1979 while residing in Pune.

As per the plea, the woman was ambitious and wanted to move to Mumbai to work in the film industry. In September 1981, she took the child along with her and left for Mumbai.

Once they reached Mumbai, the woman abandoned her son in a train and left, the plea alleged, adding that the child was found by a railway officer and sent to a children’s home.

In 1986, Srikant Sabnis’ maternal grandmother succeeded in getting his legal custody.

He initially lived with his grandmother, but was later brought up by his maternal aunt.

The plea stated that in 2017, Srikant Sabnis learnt about his biological mother.

After procuring her number, he contacted her in September 2018 when she accepted he was her son and that she had to abandon him due to unavoidable circumstances, the petition said.

He later met his mother and her second husband, but they asked him not to disclose his real identity in front of their children, it said.

“The plaintiff, who has already undergone a dreadful life seeking shelter at relatives’ place and wandering from fake parents to observation home, was totally devastated by this unacceptable condition,” the plea said.

In his plea filed before the high court recently, Srikant Sabnis sought a direction to his mother to declare he is her son and that she had abandoned him when he was two years old.

“The defendants (Aarti and Uday Mhaskar) have disturbed the mental peace of the plaintiff, for which they are bound to compensate the plaintiff,” the plea said.

“The plaintiff has undergone a life full of agony, mental trauma, inconvenience, mystery about his own parents and his existence. The plaintiff was forced to live like a beggar till his grandmother got his custody,” it added.

The petition will come up for hearing on January 13 before Justice A K Menon.