Adopted child can get compassionate job: HC

CHANDIGARH: An adopted child is eligible for job on compassionate grounds even if the adoption is done by the mother after the death of her husband, the Punjab and Haryana high court has ruled.

The high court bench observed that the compassionate appointment cannot be denied on the ground that the adoption took place after the death of husband if it is proved that adoption was not merely for the purpose of getting benefit of the scheme.

The HC was hearing a petition filed by a Tarn Taran woman in 2013, challenging a Punjab government decision of denying job to her adopted son. The high court stated that the petitioner woman adopted her brother’s son at the time of his birth and thereafter the adopted child is recorded as the couple’s son in all the documents. The adoption is not of a major/adult person just in order to obtain the benefit of the policy, the HC bench said, asking the government to give job within two months.

The HC also took note of Section 12 of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956, which states that the ties of the adopted person are permanently disconnected with his natural family for all intents and purposes. Defending its decision, the government had told court that the father had died in February 1991, whereas the adopted son was born in July 1991.

The petitioner woman’s husband and her biological minor son were killed in an encounter in 1991, carried out by the CRPF in a case of mistaken identity.