The Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Bill, providing for the adoption of both boys and girls, was approved by the Lok Sabha on Fr

The Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Bill, providing for the adoption of both boys and girls, was approved by the Lok Sabha on Friday.

Mr N. C. Chatterjee (Hindu Mahasabha) called the Bill a communal one. “ It is wrong for a secular State to single out Hindus alone for this kind of legislation.” he said.

Adoption of girls was something unheard of in Hindu society from the days of the Vedas. The Bill defied the directive principles of the Constitution.

The chapter on maintenance was capable of more than one interpretation. Lawyers had already pointed out that some of the provisions could not be enforced.

Mrs Sushama Sen (Cong.-Bihar) did not agree with Mr Chatterjee that the Bill violated the Constitution On the contrary, she said, it sought to implement the provision conferring equal right to men and women. She congratulated the Minister on giving Hindu women their rightful place in society.

Mrs Uma Nehru (Cong.-U.P.) supported the Bill and asked its critics not to mix up social reform with religious customs. She said the Bill war essentially a piece of social reform.

The Bill also received support from Mr K. P. Gounder (Cong. Madras) and Mr S. R. Telkikar (Cong. Bombay) who said it tended towards secularism in the matter of adoption. They held that some of the important provisions required better wording to make their object clear.

Mr U. N. Barman (Cong.-West Bengal) said that in previous Bills of the Hindu Code the House had accepted equality between the son and the daughter and hence there should be no objection in accepting the same principle in the present Bill.

PATASKAR’S REPLY

Replying to the debate, Mr H. V. Pataskar said that except permitting Hindus to adopt daughters the Bill made no departure from existing Hindu laws in the matter of adoption. The question of adoption, he said, had become a matter of social necessity in modern times. Many countries in Europe had passed adoption laws to enable people to adopt children orphaned as a result of World War II.

Adoption had a secular aspect as well as a religious aspect in India. The Bill satisfied the sentiments of Hindus who were inclined to look upon adoption from a religious point of view and at the same time it enabled other Hindus who wanted to adopt for secular reasons to do so.

Mr Pataskar strongly defended the provision enabling the adoption of girls and said that the fear that men would adopt girls for sinister purposes was rather far-fetched. “ If there are such devils who take a girl in adoption as daughter and misbehave, there is nothing preventing them from misbehaving even otherwise.” he said, why should we start with the presumption that every man who comes into contact with girls is going to misbehave. he asked.

LOCAL CUSTOMS

Referring to the criticism that a secular State should not undertake legislation for one community alone. Mr Pataskar said that Hindus constituted 80 per cent of the population. It was necessary to bring about uniformity in social legislation among the majority of the population before they thought of having a common law for the country.

The Minister said that as regards Punjab a person who had the right to appoint an heir in accordance with local customs could do so even after the passage of the present Bill.

The House passed the consideration motion.

During the clause-by-clause discussion, the Minister rejected all amendments. -PTI

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