Police arrest con man who duped woman of ₹9 lakh promising legal adoption of a newborn, misused her documents to buy a motorcycle.

MUMBAI: The police on Thursday arrested a con man who duped a Kandivali woman of ₹9 lakh by promising legal adoption of a newborn. According to Samta Nagar police officials, the accused, identified as Sahil Abdul Hameed Sheikh, pretended to be an employee of an NGO and had promised she could adopt a newborn. In addition to cheating the victim, the man also misused her documents in order to buy a new motorcycle.

The complainant, a 46-year-old Kandivali East resident, is a nurse and has been working as a patient caretaker for decades. Officers said that the woman was unable to conceive despite trying during the span of her 15 years of marriage. She then decided to adopt a child. When she started asking around about the adoption procedure, one of her friends introduced her to Sheikh, who in turn promised the complainant that he would find a child for her to adopt through the NGO where he worked.

In November 2020, Sheikh called the complainant and told her that there was a girl child who was put up for adoption by her mother. Sheikh showed the woman a photo of the girl child and made the woman fill a form with her particulars and also took ₹1.5 lakh as processing fees. After a few days when the woman enquired, Sheikh told her the girl had died after she contracted Covid.

He then offered her another girl child who was living with her grandmother, who could not take care of the baby. The woman then gave Sheikh ₹7.5 lakh to be paid to the grandmother of the girl child for giving up the child. After stalling the complainant for more than a year, Sheikh stopped responding to her calls and messages.

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Parents will now have to separately state the religion of the father and mother in the proposed Birth Report. A national-level database will be set up to keep records of births and deaths for various purposes.

Parents of new-born children will have to record their religion individually in the proposed Birth report, in a departure from the existing ‘religion of the family’ declaration, The Hindu reported.

The new form is in accordance with the Union Ministry of Home Affairs’ Model Rules. It will have to be notified to state governments and adopted by them before it comes into effect. The religion of the parents will have to be recorded individually for adoption also.

A national-level database will be established to keep records of both births and deaths. This database could potentially be utilised to refresh various other databases, including Aadhaar numbers, property registrations, ration cards, electoral rolls, passports, driving licenses, the National Population Register (NPR) and more.

Registration of Births and Deaths (Amendment) Bill, 2023

The sisters- Rani and Sushma used to live in the Children National Institute Orphanage in Uttar Pradesh when they were taken to Denmark by a Danish woman in 1962. They were thrilled to visit their childhood abode and had a fun time with the children at the institute.

Prayagraj: Back in 1962, two sisters from the Children National Institute orphanage were adopted by a Danish woman. Almost 62 years later, the duo- Rani and Sushma returned home in India and reminisced their sweet childhood here.

Their childhood memories were refreshed when they reached the Children National Institute Orphanage on April 2, after 62 years. Recalling where they lived, both of them visited every corner of the campus in their two-day trip to their childhood abode. They were also accompanied to the market for shopping, and showered with enormous gifts.

The duo also went around on a tour of the philosophical places of the city. 'They were eagerly waiting to come to Prayagraj for years. Despite growing up there, this orphanage in Prayagraj holds a special place for them. They often spoke of the memories they created here but regretted the fact that they could not be back here in all these years.

However, in March, they planned to visit India. They travelled to Delhi from Denmark and then went straight to the Swaraj Bhawan complex and visited the Children's National Institute, where they had spent a great chunk of their childhood.

Inconsistent jurisprudence related to adoption for Muslim couples renders parents and the young rudderless. These circumstances are enabled by a backward looking and rigid politics of the Muslim Personal Law Board (MPLB).On March 4, 2024, Live Law published a report of the Supreme Court rendering an important judgment in a custody matter in which both the parties were Muslims. What made this March 4 verdict quite distinct and path breaking? The SC didn't just reiterate the jurisprudence in matters of custody while highlighting the inconsistencies of the Orissa HC order, but also called out the flaw of court in framing the issue erroneously.In this article, the author engages with some case law on the subject to show how inconsistency creeps into judgments and what the extant jurisprudence on the matter is.

Legal certainty is one of the cardinal guarantors of the rule of law. However, when judgments end up losing sight of legal certainty, and infirmities and inconsistencies creep into jurisprudence set by constitutional courts — either by way of framing of issues or through analysis—it is the rule of law that gets undermined. The evolving jurisprudence of child’s custody, in cases where both the parties are Muslims is one such domain wherein one can witness such glaring legal uncertainty.

On March 4, 2024, the Supreme Court in Shazia Aman Khan & Ors vs The State of Orissa & Others (hereinafter ‘Shazia’) while setting aside an order passed by the Orissa High Court altering the custody of a minor girl child observed that “she cannot be treated as a chattel at the age of 14 years”. This is a very important and much needed judgment in terms of setting the record straight on jurisprudence on custody between Muslim parties in India.

In Shazia, the Supreme Court essentially made two important points. Firstly, unlike the Orissa High Court which observed that “in absence of adoption, the custody of the minor child is liable to be termed as illegal detention”, the Supreme Court did not just make the fine distinction between adoption, custody, and guardianship, but also noted that the three concepts (or definitions) are neither same nor interchangeable.

Secondly, in matters of custody, besides welfare, the Apex Court underscored, “Stability of the child is also of paramount consideration”. These two observations by the Apex Court, significantly, didn’t just further the principles of natural justice, but are also in conformity with the mandate of and jurisprudence under the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890. The glaring error that the Supreme Court identified in the High Court order, might have occurred on two counts. This could be either due to a misreading of these legal concepts (adoption, custody and guardianship) and their relationship to the stance of the Muslim Personal Law Board (MPLB) or may have been rendered in sheer haste in keenly framing the issue.

Erik Staal (59) has recently been called Redering again: the surname he was given by his biological mother. Erik was adopted as a child via the transition home Moederheil in Breda. And that adoption was annulled by the judge last week. That is quite unique at his age: it only happens once a year. Still, Erik had no choice: "It is a bizarre situation that you can be an orphan in the eyes of the law but still sit next to your mother."

Erik's mother José de Vos (75) gave her son Erik up for adoption in the 1960s at the Moederheil maternity clinic. She did so under great pressure, but that happened more often in those days. José was not married and an unmarried woman who had a child was a disgrace to the entire family.

At a later age, Erik was 46, he went looking for his mother. When children get to know their biological parent at a later age, the contact is sometimes difficult and distant. There is too little in common. But with Erik and José it went more than well. They feel a deep bond with each other and see each other every Thursday.

“Why didn't I do it sooner?”

For years Erik had been thinking about undoing his adoption. He had no good contact with his adoptive parents and they have since passed away. So Erik went to court, with José at his side.

Patna: Two girls, rescued from Patna and Rajendra Nagar railway stations when they were barely a few months old, were adopted by two couples — a Dubai-based and another one from Kerala — in the presence of Patna district magistrate (DM) Shirshat Kapil Ashok here on Tuesday. The adoption took place as per the recommendations of the Adoption Guide (2022) issued by the Union ministry of women and child development.

The girl adopted by the Dubai couple was rescued at Patna Junction platform 1 when she was just a month old, while the other was found deserted at Rajendra Nagar Railway Station when she was just nine months old. Both the girls were staying at District Child Protection Unit-operated Arunodaya, a special adoption institute in Patna.

Assistant director of DCPU, Uday Kumar Jha, said that nowadays couples were more interested in adopting a girl child rather than a boy. “Couples are even ready to wait for two to three years to adopt a girl child. In the last five years, 92 children were adopted, including 61 girls,” he said.

Earlier, children could be adopted only through family courts, therefore in a bid to make the procedures simple, the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, was amended and henceforth the DM was authorised to issue orders relating to adoption.

Just over 200 adoptions were finalised in Australia last year - an all time low and dramatic decline since reporting began more than 50 years ago.

The Australian government started recording adoptions in 1968-1969.

The number of children adopted increased from 6773 in the first year to a peak of 9798 in 1971-1972.

But the latest data in a report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows a combined 201 domestic and inter-country adoptions were recorded in 2022-2023, a decline of 98 per cent since the early 1970s peak.

Over the last five years the number of adoptions has decreased from 330 to 201.

Just over 200 adoptions were finalised in Australia last year - an all time low and dramatic decline since reporting began more than 50 years ago.

The Australian government started recording adoptions in 1968-1969.

The number of children adopted increased from 6773 in the first year to a peak of 9798 in 1971-1972.

But the latest data in a report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows a combined 201 domestic and inter-country adoptions were recorded in 2022-2023, a decline of 98 per cent since the early 1970s peak.

Over the last five years the number of adoptions has decreased from 330 to 201.

The accused in the case were arrested after the victim’s foster mother lodged a complaint against them. The court ruled that the ‘act of the accused’ amounted to ‘betrayal of faith in humanity’.

A court in Gujarat’s Surat on Monday convicted and sentenced a man, his brother and his two nephews to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment for raping the man’s adopted daughter, a minor. The court also directed that a compensation of Rs 2.50 lakh be awarded to the victim.

The special Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act court said in its order that the accused were family members and their role was to save and protect the child but “in this case, the protector became predator”.

“The victim is only 13 years and one should imagine the mental condition of the victim. The accused are none other than her family members like her father (foster), her uncle and her cousin brothers, who took advantage of her adopted child and raped her. In every culture, father primarily has the role of a protector, provider and disciplinarian, while in this case the protector became predator. The act of the accused amounts to betrayal of faith in humanity,” Judge S N Solanki observed in the order.