Rights panel glare on baby 'sale'
New Delhi: A news report about a Kerala mother selling her four-day-old baby for Rs 1 lakh to a childless couple from Tamil Nadu has prompted the National Human Rights Commission to issue notices to both state governments and the Centre.
The commission has observed that the alleged sale violated the baby's human rights and adoption laws.
It issued the notices on Thursday to the chief secretaries and police chiefs of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, seeking a detailed report on the alleged sale. They are to also mention what action had been taken in similar cases in the past, if any.
A notice has been sent also to the secretary in the Union women and child development ministry seeking a report on the matter.
The commission has specifically asked about the monitoring mechanism in place at the Central Adoption Resource Authority, the nodal statutory body overseeing adoptions, for the protection of children against the misuse of adoption laws.
All these authorities have six weeks to respond.
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"The contents of the news report indicate that due to poverty and lack of awareness, poor people are forced even to sell their children," the commission has observed.
According to the media report, published on Thursday, the sale took place a month ago but came to light recently after the mother visited her parental home in Palakkad without the baby.
She told her neighbours that she had left the baby in the care of a family in Pollachi, Tamil Nadu, the report says.
Police say she later confessed to being convinced by her husband and mother-in-law that the money from the deal could be used for the welfare of their other four children.
The police have registered a case and begun a search for the baby's father and paternal grandmother, who are said to have brokered the deal.
A preliminary probe by the state child rights committee and an NGO has found that the family sold the infant for Rs 1 lakh.
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