Mom awaits Supreme Court nod 6 years after adoption
Mom awaits Supreme Court nod 6 years after adoption
Dhananjay Mahapatra,TNN | Apr 15, 2015, 04.33 AM IST
READ MORE Supreme Court|Mytreyi Bharadwaj|Laxmikant Pandey Case|Central Adoption Resource Authority|Bimala's Adoption Case
NEW DELHI: Mytreyi Bharadwaj migrated to Canada with her parents 43 years ago. For the last six years, she has been making frequent trips to India hoping to take her adopted daughter Bimala, living in a Kolkata orphanage, back with her to Toronto. Every time, she returns to Canada empty-handed.
Mytreyi Bharadwaj migrated to Canada with her parents 43 years ago. For the last six years, she has been making frequent trips to India hoping to take her adopted daughter Bimala, living in a Kolkata orphanage, back with her to Toronto. Every time, she returns to Canada empty-handed.
Bimala was just 4 years and 8 months old when Bharadwaj spotted her through a Canadian government licenced adoption association, which, after a series of interviews and home visits, had certified her eligible to adopt a child. Both Bharadwaj and her daughter Maya were excited when they met Bimala in January 2009.
She fulfilled the due process and said, "I was approved by the Indian government through the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA). I fulfilled all the steps required by the governments of India and Canada for international adoptions."
During innumerable visits to India and agonizing wait in court, she had the occasion to read the Supreme Court's 2001 judgment in Laxmikant Pandey case. She found that the judgment and other laws mandate completion of the adoption process within two months of the date of filing application.
The most challenging part was the judicial process. Her application was rejected by the Barasat district court in West Bengal on the ground that Bimala's adoption would take her out of the court's jurisdiction, making it impossible to monitor her welfare.
Bharadwaj said, "But that is why there are laws in place in the adoptive countries to do this follow up. Canada has laws in accordance with guidelines of the Hague Convention on Protection of Children. The grounds for dismissal of the application made no sense, it was grossly unjust."
The Calcutta high court rejected her petition on a technical ground. Years went by. Bharadwaj is now 53 years old. Bimala is now 11 and still lives in the orphanage. Bharadwaj moved the Supreme Court through advocate Neela Gokhale. And her experience in the SC was even more harrowing.
She said, "My petition in the SC has been pending for more than one-and-a-half years. The bureaucracy and the sluggish pace of the courts have led me and my family to total frustration and desperation. I have put my faith in the highest court of India and I am still waiting. Every time the matter gets listed before the SC, it gets adjourned. Every day Bimala spends in the orphanage, she is kept in a vicious circle of hopelessness and destitution. And the older she gets, the more conscious she is of being left behind."
She saw hope of getting united with her adopted dau- ghter when the SC listed her petition before the Lok Adalat on April 11. She flew in from Toronto. Bimala was brought from Kolkata to the SC.
"Even though all the monitoring agencies, including CARA, Union government, West Bengal government were represented before the apex court and had already placed their no objection on record for the adoption, I was told that the matter was wrongly listed before the Lok Adalat as it could only be decided by a judicial order," she said.
Brimming with frustration, Bharadwaj said, "Bimala returned to the orphanage and I to my hotel room. I had taken special leave from work to be in New Delhi leaving behind my 12-year-old daughter and my elderly father in Toronto. I was driven by the hope that Lok Adalat would finally decide the matter and I would be able to take Bimala home. I still wait."
"How much longer should I and Bimala wait?" she said. Advocate Gokhale said she would mention the matter before Chief Justice HL Dattu on Wednesday for an early hearing.
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