Child-selling racket: Child Welfare Committee declares rescued children to be free for adoption

Hyderabad: The Child Welfare Committee (CWC) of Medchal-Malkajgiri district in Telangana has declared 15 children who were rescued by police from a child-selling racket busted earlier this year as 'Legally Free for Adoption (LFA)'.

Official sources on Wednesday said the Committee decided the children to be LFA as per Section 38 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 as their biological parents could not be traced.

The High Court had on November 28 directed the CWC to pass an order in terms of Section 37 (orders regarding a child in need of care and protection) of the Act within two weeks from the date of receipt of the copy of its order.

Section 38 of the Act stipulates that the Committee, in case of an orphan and abandoned child, shall make all efforts to trace the parents or guardians of the child and on completion of such inquiry, if it is established that the child is either an orphan having no one to take care, or abandoned, the Committee shall declare the child legally free for adoption.

The court also gave directions to the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) to decide within four weeks on the applications filed by some of the "adoptive parents" seeking adoption of the children.

The court was dealing with pleas filed by some couples, who purchased the children as part of the racket, seeking custody of the kids.

The interstate child-selling racket was busted by police in May this year with the arrest of more than 10 people who were selling infants in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh for a price ranging between Rs 1.80 lakh and Rs 5.50 lakh.

The Rachakonda Police had acted based on information that a racket was being run wherein infants brought in from different places, including Delhi and Pune, were being sold here and in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh to childless couples.

The children have since been provided shelter in a state-run children's home.

Some of the childless couples, who purchased the children, were distraught when police took away the kids as they developed a bond with the children.

They subsequently took to legal recourse hoping to get the children back.