SC notice to Centre on plea for making child adoption procedures simple

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre on a plea for improving the number of adoptions, including of orphans in the country.

The plea filed by an organisation - Temple of Healing, through its secretary Piyush Saxena, said adoptions are low in India due to multiple reasons as just 4,000 children are adopted in the country every year but there are over three crore orphans.

A bench presided over by Justice D Y Chandrachud agreed to examine the matter, saying it was a genuine case.

The bench said that there are situations of abuse, but there is a need to tighten up those areas.

Justice Chandrachud recalled an inter-country adoption case which he dealt with as a judge of Bombay High Court. He said that the child was given for inter-country adoption, later some other parents adopted him, but he couldn't settle down with any parent.

The petitioner said there is a stigma that hovers over adoption in India because it indicates infertility among the adopting couple. Indian culture places high value on ideas of fertility and family, disregarding scientific evidence.

“When potential parents look to adopt, they fill out a form stating what a “perfect match” for them will be (eg, a male baby with no medical issues and light skin, for instance). The Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) of India doesn’t have a department or agency to follow up with prospective parents on these matches. Without a division to follow up, CARA doesn’t have the means to check if these parents would be interested in adopting a child that does not “exactly” meet the original specifications,” the plea said.

The plea sought a direction to the Ministry of Women and Child Development to introduce a scheme for orphan adoption document preparers, and reduce the number of pages of the home study report schedule VII to reduce paperwork to make the adoption process simple and corruption-free.

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