HC orders RPO to reissue passport to adopted child

Madurai: Taking into account that there was no column in the application form to declare whether a child is natural or adopted,

Madras high court quashed the letter issued by Madurai regional passport officer summoning a man for inquiry on the ground

that he had suppressed the fact that his daughter was adopted while applying for passport for her earlier. The court also

directed the authorities to process the petitioner’s application and re-issue passport to his daughter.

The petitioner and his wife had adopted a girl child through the child welfare committee in 2015 by following the procedures

after obtaining an order from the jurisdictional court. They applied for passport for the child which was issued in June 2016.

Due to some misunderstanding, the marriage between the petitioner and his wife was dissolved and the child is presently

residing with him.

Since the child’s passport was to expire in May, he submitted an application seeking to re-issue the passport. That was when

the RPO sent a letter summoning him for inquiry and asking to surrender his daughter’s passport as he had suppressed the fact

that she was adopted while making the earlier application. Challenging the letter, the petitioner filed the present petition before

HC Madurai bench. Justice N Anand Venkatesh observed that proper procedure was followed during the adoption. “By virtue

of this birth certificate, the parents will have to be treated almost like natural parents and thereafter, it is not necessary for the

parents to keep announcing to the world that they are the adoptive parents of the child,” observed the judge.

The judge observed that no one has complained till now that the parents are acting against the welfare of the child. The

regional passport officer need not have taken pains to inquire into the issue of welfare of the child and it was enough if he had

been confined to scrutinizing the records before him. The judge observed that in the absence of a column in the application to

declare whether the child is a natural or an adopted child, it cannot be said that the parents had suppressed the fact that the

child was adopted

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