HC allows couple to adopt 3-year-old girl

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Wednesday allowed a couple to adopt a three-year-old girl, despite the lack of written permission from the child’s biological mother. 

A division bench of Justice Naresh Patil and Justice Nitin Sambre was hearing a petition filed by a couple and a Mumbai-based NGO Shantigriha. According to the petition, the couple had adopted a girl child in 2015, and for last three years, she is staying with them. The girl was adopted from the NGO after completing the procedure, but Children Welfare Committee (CWC) had not given a certificate to the couple due to which they were facing documentation problem. The petitioner informed the court that in February 2015 an auto driver had brought a 7-8 month pregnant woman to the doorstep of NGO Shantigriha. The woman wanted to abort her child but the members of the NGO persuaded her not to abort her child, and she gave birth to a girl child in the hospital. Following which, the woman told  the NGO that she came from Kolhapur and she didn’t want the child and was looking to study further.. 

Fortunately, a childless couple had come forward to adopt the girl child. The biological mother in front of the CWC had given no objection to the couple to adopt her child. The petitioner also informed the court that the CWC had called her again to sign papers, but since then she had disappeared. The couple and NGO had issued public notice in the newspaper as well as sent letters to the address given by her but received no response.

Chief Government pleader, Poornima Kantharia informed the court that “the main anxiety of CWC is permission of biological mother, and the advertisement was given in the newspaper”.

The court had suggested that the NGO should adopt advance communication system to contact people and allowed the couple to complete all the requisite procedure of adopting the child in the absence of biological mother of the child. The court disposed off the petition.