ISLAMABAD, Dec 8: The Supreme Court on Friday allowed 12-year-old Misbah Irum Rana, who is at the centre of an international custody tussle between her divorced parents, to continue staying with her father in Pakistan until mid-January.

A three-member bench had taken up an appeal of the father Sajjad Ahmed Rana seeking annulment of the Lahore High Court's order to return his UK-born daughter to her Scottish mother Louise Anne Fairley.

“Pending decision, status quo shall be maintained and the minor will not be removed from Pakistan,” Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry ruled before rising for the day.

The court will resume proceedings in the second week of January, after the winter vacations beginning on Dec 18 are over.

Misbah, called Molly Campbell by her mother, had fled Scotland last August with her elder sister Tehmina to join her father in Pakistan. Mr Rana is claiming that she wants to live with him in Lahore but her mother is arguing that she has been brought here unlawfully and she should return home in Western Isles of Scotland. The couple had had divorced in 2001.

Justice Saqib Nisar of the Lahore High Court on a habeas corpus petition of Ms Fairley had ordered the British high commission on Nov 29 to arrange for the reunion of the girl with her mother within a week. The judge held that Scotland's Lord Ordinary Sessions Judge Lady Anne Smith had rightly held that the minor should stay with her mother since the youngster was a British citizen.

However, her departure was deferred when a division bench of the high court stayed the execution of the order till Friday on an intra-court appeal by the father.

"I am relieved and feeling happy that the court has ordered my daughter to stay here," Mr Rana told reporters after Friday's hearing.

At the outset of the proceedings, Advocate Malik Mohammad Qayyum pleaded before the apex court that Dec 8 was the last date to hand over the custody of the girl to the high commission.

Citing a ruling, the counsel stated that the House of Lords had held that the welfare of minors should always be the consideration instead of the rights of the parents while deciding custody matters. He said a lot of international as well as Islamic laws were also involved in the controversy.

The chief justice asked Naheeda Mehboob Illahi, representing Ms Fairley in Pakistan, to consider while preparing her case as to why the minor should suffer even if the court reached a conclusion that the father had committed a crime and, therefore, be punished for violating the law.

However, she replied that the aspect had been taken care of by the judge of the high court in his order.