Lucknow: In a landmark judgment, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has said that renunciation of the child by a parent can be taken into consideration while determining whether the power to give in adoption has been delegated or to determine the consent to giving in adoption.
Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya took note of a Delhi high court decision wherein it was observed that, in view of complete detachment of the biological father from the child who did not perform any of the fatherly duties, the mother cannot be restrained from lawfully including the child in her new family. The petitioner was a lady, who had remarried after divorce, and had sought the court’s permission to give the child (born in the wedlock with earlier husband) in adoption to her new husband, whom she has married after judicial separation from her earlier husband.
The judge observed that though Indian law does not, on renunciation of child by either parent, vests an exclusive right in the other to give the child in adoption but such renunciation of the child by a parent can be taken into consideration if while determining whether the power to give in adoption has been delegated to the other parent or to determine her/his consent to giving the child in adoption.
The case had reached the Allahabad HC as the district court refused to grant such a leave on the ground that since the putative father of the child is alive and he has not renounced the world, neither has he ceased to be a Hindu. Further he has also not been declared to be a person of unsound mind by any court, as such in the absence of consent of his biological father, permission sought by mother for giving the child in adoption cannot be granted. The high court observed that the consent of the other parent will not be required for a person giving a child in adoption only if the other parent renounces the world and not the child alone.
