HC lifts two-yr embargo on adoption of a child

The Bombay High Court recently took a note of the rise of ‘competitiveness’ in human life and especially in the field of education. The HC said that education of a child has reached to an ‘absurd and impossible’ level wherein the future of children is often ‘imperilled’ because of this competitiveness.

A single-judge bench of Justice Gautam Patel removed the embargo of two years for the adoption of a child. The bench was responding to a petition filed by a couple seeking to adopt a six-year-old boy. The couple, however, could not adopt the child as a nearly two-decade-old ruling of the HC obstructed their dreams.

“The factual scenario today is very different from what it was merely two decades ago. The question of identity and proof of identity for every living person and citizen has assumed a certain criticality. From the child’s earliest days, parents must now have ready at hand for a multitude of purposes documentation establishing the child’s birth, identity and parentage. One of the most crucial areas is the question of admission to educational institutions,” Justice Patel said noted.

Justice Patel said, “In matters of education, things have reached an absurd and even impossible pass where a child has to be registered for admission almost at birth and certainly well before the child is able to speak or walk. So competitive is the race for admission and so difficult is the process that the child’s entire educational future is often imperilled merely for want of early registration.”

These observations were made in light of the October 1999 ruling of the HC, wherein it introduced the rule that no couple can be allowed to adopt a child at least for two years after becoming the legal guardians of the child.

While removing this embargo, Justice Patel said, “Perhaps two or more decades ago the considerations of digital ids, early admissions and the pressure and competition to gain admission had not yet become as severe or pronounced as they are today. I am, therefore, not prepared to accept that the two-years period, as mandated. There is no statutory backing to this requirement.”

“The imperatives of children’s educational, financial and social welfare cannot be limited or restricted because of what appears to me to have been little more than a precautionary operational and procedural stipulation, one that finds voice only in judge-made law. The hands of a Court of equity can never be tied by too rigid or too doctrinaire an approach, particularly when a Court has to deal with children,” Justice Patel added.

Justice Patel accordingly allowed the couple to adopt the child.

Justice Patel said, “In matters of education, things have reached an absurd and even impossible pass where a child has to be registered for admission almost at birth and certainly well before the child is able to speak or walk. So competitive is the race for admission and so difficult is the process that the child’s entire educational future is often imperilled merely for want of early registration.”