HC says preserve all adoption orders as it can’t find '97 do .. Read more at: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6

HC says preserve all adoption orders as it can’t find '97 do ..

HC says preserve all adoption orders as it can’t find '97 document

TNN | Jun 17, 2018, 05.14 AM IST

HC says preserve all adoption orders as it can’t find '97 document

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court has directed its registry to maintain, in perpetuity, all court orders and records related to Indian or international adoptions. These are vital documents affecting the rights of adoptees, said Justice Gautam Patel.

A permanent record in digital form must also be maintained, directed the HC.

“I stress the importance of this because these documents are required for the benefit and use of children given in adoption,” said Justice Patel. “They are essential for multiple purposes, including citizenship, identity, invaluable and inalienable fundamental and human rights. Without adequate documentation a child given in adoption might face extreme difficulties in the country where he has been placed after adoption,” he said.

A man from Germany who in 1997 adopted a two-year-old boy in Mumbai had moved HC for a certified copy of the adoption order. The adoption was allowed on July 30, 1997, when Justice S Radhakrishnan was a judge of the HC.

The adoptive parent needed the certified order—he had only a copy of it—to produce before the authorities in Germany to obtain the necessary nationalisation documents for the child. The child was born on September 10, 1995.

The registry could trace the petition of last November but not the original order. A photocopy of an ordinary certified copy of the judge’s order was the only document currently available.

“There is an imperative need for this document,” observed Justice Patel who directed the registry to urgently issue a certified copy of the order to the parent, which would treated as authenticated order.

The judge then said it is necessary that “while supervising the routine segregation of records for the purpose of archiving, and destruction of records that are not being preserved, care should be taken to ensure that in all, adoption and guardianship matters, whether Indian or foreign, the judge’s order bearing the original signature of the judge in question is always maintained in perpetuity and is never sent for destruction.”

The court also said, “As an added precaution, registry will commence the process of preparing and maintaining complete digital scans of the petition after it is finally disposed of (whether allowed, dismissed or withdrawn) and these scans will include copies of all orders that might have been passed”. In particular, those allowing the petition for adoption.

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