MUMBAI, Dec. 27 -- The Bombay High Court has rejected a petition filed by a UK resident, seeking custody of his 13-year-old daughter who lives in Mumbai with his estranged wife, noting that the teenager was mature enough to make her own decisions and had chosen to stay with her mother in India. A division bench of justices Bharati Dangre and Shyam C Chandak said they could not compel the girl to accompany her father to the UK, after finding her mature enough to make up her mind to continue to stay with her mother in India. "We are convinced that XYZ (the teenager) has matured in all these years and no decision can be forced upon her," the bench said. The father had approached the high court in 2021 with a habeas corpus petition, claiming that his wife had retained illegal custody of his daughter, against orders passed by a family court in the UK, and sought custody of the child from his estranged wife, who lives in Mumbai. According to his petition, he married a Mauritian national, now his estranged wife, in 2005. In 2008, the couple chose to shift to the UK, and their daughter was born in the UK in 2012. In April 2015, cracks started to appear in their marriage and, although they continued to live under the same roof, they were physically and mentally estranged from each other. The father claimed that he had approached the family court in the UK in 2016, and the family court at Barnet, prohibited his wife from removing the girl from England and Wales. In April 2017, the family court allowed his wife to take the child to India to meet her grandmother and extended family in India, from May 2017 to June 2017, hoping that she would return to the UK with the girl at the end of the holiday, but she did not. The woman then filed a custody petition before the Thane Sessions Court, the father approached the high court for custody of his daughter. The court rejected his prayers, observing that in custody matters, the welfare of the child is of utmost importance. The judges met the 13-year-old in chambers and, after interacting with her, realised that she was a mature teenager and had chosen not to accompany her father to the UK. The judges said, against this backdrop, they "cannot compel" her to reside with her father and restore her custody to him. The judges said she has "painted the future for herself in India with the love and affection showered upon her by her mother". They said she looks forward to a future in India. They also found her "well settled" in India during the last four years. In their interaction with her, the judges also noticed that she was completely alienated from her father. They felt her father was to blame for this, as he had made no effort to meet her during the last four years, and said that he had "failed to discharge his obligations of a father"....