Kerala adoption row: No action taken after seven months

THIRUVANANTHAPUR: Seven months have passed since a high-ranking IAS official submitted a report which contained adverse comments on the Kerala State Council for Child Welfare (KSCCW) for flouting adoption norms, but no action has been taken in the matter so far.

Many feel the reason no action has been initiated so far is because KSCCW's General Secretary, J.S. Shiju Khan, is a top youth leader of the ruling CPI-M.

Incidentally, the KSCCW along with the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) was in the news when it was alleged that it had allowed adoption of a child to an Andhra Pradesh couple last year.

Trouble began when a former student activist of the CPI-M, Anupama, and her now husband Ajith, also a local CPI-M leader, claimed that four days after she delivered her baby boy in October 2020, her parents forcibly took the child away and later the KSCCWC and CWC allowed the child to be adopted by an Andhra Pradesh couple.

Following media outcry, which began in September 2021, action begun on the distraught mother's pleas.

The local family court in Thiruvananthapuram, which formalised the adoption, stayed the process and the baby was brought from Andhra Pradesh and a DNA test was conducted after which he was handed over to Anupama and Ajith.

Anupama accused a few people of playing a role in taking her baby away, including the police, a notary, and officials attached to the KSCCWC.

After the matter gathered a lot of media attention, state Health Minister Veena George, who also holds the portfolio of Women and Child Development, ordered a probe by senior IAS officer T.V. Anupama.

However, the IAS officer's report is lying in the cold storage for the past seven months, and no action has been taken so far.

"We have no clue of what has happened to the report. Everyone is silent and no action has been taken so far, " said Anupama, the mother of the child.

Anupama's grandfather was one of the topmost CPI-M leaders in Thiruvananthapuram in the 70s and 80s. Despite the connections, she got a raw deal from the government and it took the court to deliver justice to the distraught mother.

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