A Study of Child Adoption Process Laws in India

The reason why the concept of adoption was brought was to give the right to a family for the orphan, abandoned and surrendered (OAS) children. The objective behind bringing this concept was to secure the performance of one’s funeral rights and to preserve the continuation of one’s lineage. To restore the family life to a child deprived of his or her biological family, the concept of adoption was considered the best means. In the course of transit from the primitive to the modern age, the concept of adoption has undergone a radical change. Adoption, being mostly like other social institutions, is essentially a product of historical and evolutionary processes. Reforms related to the old Hindu law were seen, and one of them was in the guise of a codified law on adoptions, called the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956. Section 2 of HAMA allows any person who comes within the definition of ‘Hindu’ to be eligible to adopt a child for adoption. Various progressive changes were brought by this new codified law, like adoption by female Hindu, the girl child being eligible for adoption, etc.Many international conventions on Human Rights expressly mention the positive duty in order to provide protection and assistance to children, like the Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 (CRC), which is a reservoir of various rights that are concerned with children. The concept of adoption does not apply to other communities like Muslims, Parsis and Christians. For that, they resort to the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890. Such a process makes him or her their child, not an adopted child. Under this, a child who turns 21 years old is no longer a ward and assumes individual identities. When it comes to the orphan, abandoned and surrendered children, these aforesaid enactments remain silent. For the adoption of these categories, there was as such no codified legislation, but the CARA and the legislature also framed the law. In order to consider all these categories, a laudable attempt was made by the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000. The reason why such an attempt is commendable is that such an enactment allowed secular adoption of the child irrespective of his or her religious community. This enactment has given the right to all citizens to adopt and to all children to be adopted. As per the Supreme Court’s directions, the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), which is the current apex controlling body in matters relating to the matters of legal adoption, was established based on the judgment in Lakshmi Kant Pandey v. Union of India, where, under section 41(3) of the JJ Act, CARA has framed a set of guidelines. We also discuss the process of OAS adoption and define the power related to the District Magistrate and any other authority.