The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought response on a petition seeking court’s intervention for streamlining and making the process of legal adoption process lucid and comprehensible.
A division bench of the high court presided over by Chief Justice D. N. Patel and Justice Jasmeet Singh issued notice to Centre, Delhi government, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), and Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) and slated the matter for further hearing on March 26.
The plea filed by NGO Yathartha Foundation claims that illegal practices with regard to adoption are prevailing and pervading in India which, have been a cause of suffering and harassment to a large number of children given and taken in adoption and also to their parents.
“…the recent popularity of IVF and surrogacy has shoved such couples towards IVF centres and surrogacy centres and that is the reason that now these centres have become a hotspot for the middlemen, who misguide the childless couples by touting a convenient and quick method of adoption instead of lengthy and cumbersome legal procedure and the market of such middlemen is flourishing as they successfully trap the couples who are often frustrated by lengthy bureaucratic delays, court procedures and complex rules and are in haste to become parents. They are ignorant of the illegal and criminal modus operandi of such middlemen and consequently fall for them,”
-the plea said.
It further stated that the children who are given in adoption with the intervention of such middlemen are actually victims of kidnapping, trafficking and sometimes these are the children who are given away by their biological parents for paltry sum due to poverty or destitution.
“…some children are also snatched from hospitals and train stations by these middlemen and then they are eventually given into adoption to wealthy couples,” the plea said.
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The plea has sought for the simplification of the procedure to adopt children under the Juvenile Justice Act.
It further sought for the opening up of more child care institutions or centres and to bring existing unregistered ones under the ambit of the statutory umbrella.
The petitioner NGO sought court’s direction to the Centre and other authorities to take steps for creation of more foster homes and identifying the families which can take foster children and act as foster families.