ISLAMABAD, Dec 7: The father of a British-born girl here on Thursday moved the Supreme Court to annul the Lahore High Court's order to return his daughter to her Scottish mother.

Twelve-year-old Misbah Iram Rana, called Molly Campbell by her mother, is at the centre of a custody tussle between her divorced parents since she fled her mother last August and joined her father Sajjad Ahmed Rana in Lahore.

Ever since Sajjad Rana is claiming that Misbah wants to live with him in Pakistan, but her mother Louise Anne Fairley asserts that her daughter has been taken unlawfully and should return to Scotland.

On a habeas corpus petition of Ms Fairley, Justice Saqib Nisar of the Lahore High Court on November 29 had ordered the British High Commissioner to arrange for the return of the girl to her mother in a week.

Later the execution of the single bench’s order for the return of Misbah Iram was stayed by a division bench of the same court on an intra-court appeal by the father. The stay is expiring on December 8.

"I have been informed that a bench of the Supreme Court will take up the appeal on Friday," Advocate Malik Mohammad Qayyum, the legal counsel of the petitioner told Dawn though he too was not aware as to which bench of the apex court would hear the matter. He also stated that an intra-court appeal before the high court would also be withdrawn by the petitioner the same day.

Moved under Article 185 (3) of the Constitution (Supreme Court's original jurisdiction), Sajjad Ahmed Rana contended, the high court had failed to realise that he being a natural guardian would lose forever his right to supervision over her daughter if the mother was allowed to take the custody of the minor out of Pakistan.

Misbah Iram, the father contended, had not attained the age of discretion as well as puberty therefore, the single judge of the high court had failed to notice that welfare of the minor always determines the question of custody in such cases instead of rights of parents.