Not stopped adoptions, will clarify further on June 16: Bombay High Court

Taking cognizance of an article published by The Indian Express, Justice Patel said, “Justice Neela K Gokhale pointed out that The Indian Express has a story that many adoption papers are stuck because of our order. Why is it stuck? We need to clarify it. Nobody has stopped the adoption. We will keep it for orders on June 16.”

The Bombay High Court’s directive to the state government on adoption proceedings came on January 10 during the hearing of a writ petition filed by advocates and Kandivali residents Nisha Pandya and Pradeep Pandya, who challenged the constitutional validity of the 2021 amendment.

However, a division bench of Justice Gautam S Patel had clarified that till the petition before it is disposed of, the single-judge benches of the high court or other courts, which currently have such adoption matters on their record and files, should continue with the proceedings.

But, due to the 2021 amendment, all the adoption cases were transferred from courts to the district magistrates, further delaying the adoption process.

“All the cases were withdrawn from the courts, paperwork re-done, and filed with the district magistrates. After a delay of six to 12 months, while the adoption process was in the final stages, the stay has put everything on hold. These are families suffering for no fault of their own, moving back and forth,” read a letter submitted by a group of 250 affected PAPs to Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) on Monday.

The Indian Express found out that although the adoption agencies could have helped the PAPs by approaching the respective district courts or even the High Court to clear all pending and fresh matters after the January order, they didn’t.

“Each district has their own District Child Protection Units (DCPU)—a government body that looks after the adoptions. However, the DCPUs aren’t allowing the adoption centres to approach the court. As it is a legal battle between the court and Maharashtra Women and Child Welfare Development (WCD), DCPUs don’t want to approach courts,” said an official from an adoption agency in Mumbai.

The PAPs also outlined how the government bodies are keeping them in the dark, further adding to their distress. Those in foreign countries are the worst hit due to the geographical remoteness and language barriers.

A couple based abroad in an email informed how after being repeatedly ignored by the specialized adoption agencies (SAA), they had to seek permission to allow a Hindi speaking friend to intervene.

“I was repeatedly told by my agency that my dossier was “in the process” of being withdrawn from court and registered with the district magistrate, when in fact, the SAA didn’t understand the process. It was not in the process of being withdrawn from court, nor was the SAA actively seeking clarification on the new process. Feeling frustrated and wanting answers…I received permission from my agency to have a Hindi speaking friend in India call the SAA to get concrete answers. He spoke with the director and learned the SAA had no idea how to withdraw my paperwork from court. I relayed that to my agency, which had repeatedly told me it was ‘in the process of being withdrawn,'” read the email. Her dossier was finally withdrawn from court in November.

In January this year, the high court was not impressed by the arguments of the authorities that the amendment was required to avoid delays in the disposal of the adoption matters. Maintaining that it was not granting stay “indefinitely for a long period of time,” the bench had said that no prejudice would have caused to any party if the system existing prior to the amendment continued.