Adoptive
26 June 2010
Adoptive mother wins fight for kid
June 26th, 2010
Chennai, June 25: The Madras high court on Friday came to the rescue of woman who wished to be an adoptive parent but was about to have the joy of her life snatched from her.
The court stayed the order of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), directing the Guild of Service (central) Adoption Unit, Chennai, to immediately send to a Bala Mandir adoption centre a five-year-old girl who is in the custody of her pre-adoptive parent.
Justice T. Sudanthiram granted a stay for four weeks on a petition filed by Gemma Bridget D'Silva, a spinster, who had taken the child in pre-adoptive foster care.
Advocate Abudu Kumar submitted that the petitioner had approached the Guild of Service to adopt a child legally as she had been longing for a child.
The guild, after an interview with Ms D’Silva, obtained a pre-adoptive foster care undertaking from her and handed over the child to her.
Ms D’Silva, the advocate said, had been rearing the child with love and care since February 2010. All of a sudden and without any valid reason, the guild demanded that she hand over the child based on a letter issued by the CWC, dated June 21, 2010, directing that the child be sent to the Bala Mandir adoption centre.
“Ms D’Silva is entitled to take a child in adoption from the guild after having fully satisfied it about her social status, financial condition and her earnestness to have a child,” advocate Kumar argued. “An order to separate her from the child without any valid reason and opportunity of hearing is liable to be set aside,” he added.
Justice Sudanthiram also stayed the order of the CWC directing the guild to transfer another child in the custody of an adoptive parent, Thirunavukarasu, to a Bala Mandir centre.