HC allows Swedish citizen to file complaint in adoption case

Mumbai, Jun 12 (PTI) The Bombay High Court has allowed a Swedish national, who was adopted from India in 1977, to file a complaint before a Magistrate seeking action against an adoption centre, which had refused to reveal information about her biological mother.

Hearing a petition filed by Rebecka Saudamini Arnes, Justices A M Khanwilkar and A R Joshi, yesterday, disposed of her petition, seeking a direction to police to take action against Shradhanand Mahilashram at Matunga here, from where she was adopted.

       After a four-year search for her mother, Arnes had approached the High Court in August last year by filing a petition jointly with her adoptive mother Eva Lindgren.

     She prayed for a direction to police to seek action against the Mahilashram located in Matunga here for not disclosing information about her biological mother.

      The Court had earlier directed the petitioner to file a complaint before a Magistrate. However, she did not do so.

The Court had also asked the state government to seek information from authorities at the missing persons bureau regarding Arnes's biological mother.

      Arnes said she was given away in adoption to a Swedish couple when she was a two-day-old baby at Shradhanand Mahilashram.

      Arnes had also annexed to her petition an e-mail correspondence between her and Tushar Gandhi, great grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, who runs the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation in Mumbai.

      Arnes had contended that her adoption was recommended by Gandhi's parents Arun and Sunanda, who at the relevant time had helped Swedish couples adopt children from India. As he (Gandhi) still lived in the city, the petitioner sought his help to locate her roots and find out who was her biological mother. However, Gandhi had sent terse replies to her e-mails.