Make adoption easy

Make adoption easy

19 Dec 2009, 0326 hrs IST, ET Bureau

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IN A space of three months, we’ve seen two positive developments in the sphere of adoption, an activity that simultaneously relieves distress and

builds human capital. In September, the Mumbai High Court paved the way for Hindus to adopt a child of the same gender as their existing offspring. The court allowed legal adoption of a girl taken as a ward under the Juvenile Justice Act even though the couple already had a daughter.

Stating that courts must harmonise personal laws with secular legislation, Justice D Y Chandrachud held the Juvenile Justice Act of 2000 would prevail over the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act (Hama), a personal law that is restrictive on adoption.

The ruling is noteworthy as personal laws of non-Hindu communities

do not provide for adoption and parents can only be appointed as guardians under the Guardian and Wards Act, 1890.

If the privileging of the Juvenile Justice Act over personal laws is carried to its logical end, adoption should (rightly) become easier across all communities, bringing relief to prospective parents and abandoned children.

Separately, the government is reportedly toying with allowing women to be appointed ‘guardian’ regardless of their marital status. Hama does not allow a married Hindu woman to adopt even with her husband’s consent, as the right to adopt vests solely with the man (albeit with his wife’s consent). Ironically, this is a handicap only for married women — unmarried women, divorcees and widows are free to adopt. This needs to change. The law should not discriminate between married men and married women.

The proposed change, though an improvement over the extant law, does not go far enough. Why should married women have to rest content with guardianship rather than adoption? Justice must be gender-neutral. Given the numbers waiting to be adopted — 6,000, according to the official figures of the Central Adoption Resource Agency, though actual numbers are likely to be higher, say activists — every effort must be made to make adoption easi