HC asks CARA to allow childless couple to adopt girl who was “bought” from her birth mother

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court (HC) recently ordered the Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA), a statutory body responsible for regulating and monitoring adoptions, to let an issueless couple adopt a newborn girl, who was “illegally sold” to them eight months ago by her birth mother

The order came on a petition filed by the childless couple after the Mumbai police crime branch took away the child during an investigation into an alleged child trafficking racket and on order of the Child Welfare Committee, the baby girl was kept in a children’s home in Mumbai.

The division bench of justice Bharati Dangre and justice Manjusha Deshpande asked CARA to allow the couple to adopt the child as per prevailing procedure, as the couple had “nurtured the baby girl for around eight months” since she was just six-day-old.

“We prima-facie express that upon the child being declared as fit for adoption, CARA, deviating from its faceless procedure, can consider the fitness of the Petitioners to be adoptive parents and after following the regulations prescribed by CARA, the Petitioners shall adopt the girl child since they already have cared for her for the past 8 months,” said the bench.

The petitioners claimed they had adopted the girl child with the help of one Uma Revla, who informed them that the 3-day-old girl was available for adoption as her mother expressed unwillingness to maintain the child.

They paid a hefty sum to Revla, reimbursed the hospital bills and other medical charges to the girl’s mother and took her into custody on November 17, 2023, when she was barely 6–days–old. They said that around eight months later, on June 9, 2024, the Mumbai crime branch abruptly snatched the child from them in connection with a crime registered at Vikhroli police station.

After their representations did not yield any response, the couple approached the high court with a habeas corpus petition, seeking custody of the girl child, claiming that the abrupt snatching of the child from them had caused them immense mental trauma, as they had ceremoniously inducted the girl child as part of their family and had cared for her for around 8 months.

The judges noticed that though the child was not adopted in a legal manner nor were the petitioners appointed as its guardians, the child was in their custody and considered it to be the most feasible mechanism in the fitness of things and for the welfare of the child, since the child was in care and protection of the Petitioners.

The process of adoption would start after the girl child is declared fit for adoption by the Child Welfare Committee.