Recently the Supreme Court affirmed the order of the High Court which held that "If a failure on the part of a resident Indian be the cause for a Child being made available for inter-country adoption, that cannot possibly be viewed as constituting a valid or cogent ground to either doubt the validity of the adoption or question the integrity of the adoption process."
The bench of Justices Aniruddha Bode and Sudhanshu Dhulia while dealing with a case of inter-country adoption held that Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015 provides for robust scrutiny of adoption when a child is made available to people from other than India and Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) is very well dealing with these cases.
In this matter an Indian spouce filed a petition before the High Court challenging the decision of CARA to make one child 'S' available for adoption for inter-country adoption when a stipulated period of 15 days as provided by the Act passed which provides for making reservation for a child by any Indian, NRI or OCI.
The petitioner before the Supreme Court urged that Child ‘S’ was found abandoned in a cremation ground on 10.10.2019. Petitioner’s case is that the child was buried alive and was rescued by the family of the petitioners only. Child ‘S’ was admitted to hospital for medical treatment and relevant information was also given to Child Welfare Committee. She remained under the care of Vatsalya NBCC Hospital, Bareilly between 12.10.2019 and 03.12.2019. It was found that she was suffering from septicemia, hypothermia, hypoglycemia, acute weight loss and convulsions. A team of CARA further examined Child ‘S’ under specialised doctors, when it was found that she is suffering from epilepsy also and thereafter she underwent treatment for epilepsy.
The Supreme Court further observed that, the Child was declared legally free for adoption by CWC on 28.07.2020. The category under which her adoption was to be made available was, “special needs category” and that such a child is free for adoption was disclosed on the portal of CARA. During the stipulated period of 15 days, any Indian, NRI or OCI could make a reservation for adoption of Child ‘S’, after adopting due process. No application came forward during this period. The Child ‘S’ was then after the expiry of the relevant period, was made available for inter-country adoption. It was then that respondents nos.3 and 4 made reservation for inter-country adoption of Child ‘S’. Respondent nos. 3 and 4 are a married couple from Malta.
The Supreme Court dismissed the petition and signeled to continue with the process of giving the child to the couple from Malta.
The petitioner was represented by Dr. Manish Singhvi Sr. Adv and Dr. Menaka Guruswamy represented the couple from Malta and ASG K.M. Nataraj represented the CARA.
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