Preeti Goel Bishop, a naturalized American citizen, had got the Delhi High Court’s nod for inter-country relative adoption despite CARA’s objection
By Sumit Saxena
The Law Ministry is preparing to challenge a Delhi High Court order, which granted the daughter of Justice Adarsh Goel, a retired judge of the Supreme Court and presently chairman of the National Green Tribunal (NGT), permission for inter-country relative adoption. Justice Goel’s daughter, Preeti Goel Bishop, is married to an American national and is herself a naturalized US citizen.
On January 14, a bench of Delhi High Court’s Justice V. Kameswar Rao had allowed Preeti, a resident of Pleasant Hill, California, and a licensed American attorney, to proceed with an inter-country relative adoption. Preeti had moved the Delhi High Court pleading that her request for adoption, pending clearance from the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), be expeditiously processed in her favour. The court’s order had cleared the way for Preeti and her husband to adopt a Hindu child.
CARA, India’s nodal agency for approving adoption, had refused to issue a No Objection Certification (NoC) to Preeti for the inter-country relative adoption citing certain procedural lapses on her part. The Hague Convention mandates every country to have a centralized adoption agency authorized to approve inter-country adoption. Further, prospective adoptive parents (PAPs) cannot directly initiate the adoption process but have to engage an Authorised Foreign Agency to act on their behalf.