"Once Child Comes Under CARA There Is No Delay In Adoption", Centre Informs Supreme Court

Union of India today submitted a set of suggestions before the Supreme Court in a plea seeking directions to make adoption procedures simple, and superfluous.

ASG Aishwarya Bhati informed the bench that as pert experts from the field once a child came under the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), there was no delay in their adoption.

"Its the identification that takes time..so we can direct the nodal departments to carry out an identification drive every 3-4 months", ASG Bhati added.

A bench of CJI Chandrachud with Justices Pardiwala and Manoj Misra was further told that a positive step of foster adoption has been started by CARA.

Court was also informed that 38000 children were adopted in the last ten years.

The bench will now hear the matter on Friday, after going through the suggestive notes placed on record by all concerned parties.

Supreme Court on Friday October 13 questioned CARA on why it was stalling the adopting process in the country while thousands of orphans waited.

"CARA just does not allow adoptions..we must encourage adoptions..there are so many good people who want to adopt..you intervene in this..", a CJI led bench told ASG Aishwarya Bhati, asking her to sit down with the agency and streamline the process.

When the bench questioned as to why the reply from Centre had still not been filed, ASG Bhati replied saying, "We want to be collaborative in this..which is why we need time to reply..atleast one week".

"Figures of 4000 adoption per year against a figure of 1.3 crore orphans is extremely low..one notification from the government can solve everything..", the petitioner appearing in person told the bench also comprising Justices Pardiwala and Manoj Misra

In August last year, Supreme Court had orally asked the Central Government to consider streamlining the adoption process in the country.

The instant plea has been filed by the Temple of Healing through its Secretary Dr. Piyush Saxena seeking an appropriate direction to the Central Government for improving the number of adoptions in the country. The plea also sought direction to frame guidelines for the purpose of adoption in India.

Earlier, the bench while issuing the notice, had said, "We are satisfied that this is a genuine petition. We will issue notice."

The plea further sought direction to the Ministry of Women and Child Development to give adequate publicity to HAMA (Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956) even though the Act has been formulated by the Ministry of Law and Justice.

Additionally, the petition sought direction to enforce the fundamental right guaranteed under Article 21 which gives an individual the right to live with dignity. "An orphan cannot survive its life with dignity until he/she feels like an orphan", the plea stated.

Relying on data according to the Indian Society of Assisted Reproduction, the plea submitted that infertility currently affects 10 to 14 percent of the Indian population and approximately 2.82 crore children in India are orphans.

Throwing light on issues surrounding the low adoption rates in India, the plea stated that there are four main reasons for this, which are complex social norms, outdated adoption laws, lack of financing for background checks of prospective parents, and failure of systems and lack of infrastructure.

The PIL plea further submitted that a detailed submission was made before the Ministry of Women and Child Development but no action has been taken till now.

Case Title: THE TEMPLE OF HEALING vs. UNION OF INDIA