File photo of Bombay High Court
The Bombay High Court today held that couples where one of the parents is an Indian national and are desirous of adopting a child in India; would be termed as 'in-country', reducing the formalities to be followed by them.
A division bench of Justices V M Kanade and B P Colabawala was hearing a petition filed by an American woman married to an Indian seeking to adopt a six-year-old boy with special needs who has been in her foster care.
The bench permitted he woman to file an application for adoption of the boy before a magistrate court which has been directed to decide the plea expeditiously.
The court held that rule 40 of the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) which mandates a 'No Objection Certificate' (NOC) from the agency for 'inter-country' adoptions will not be applicable to this case as it was 'in-country'.
The woman approached the High Court when her application for child adoption was not accepted by CARA. While the adoption authority claims that their NOC is required in this case as the lady is an American, the woman has said she has been living in India since her marriage to an Indian citizen six years back and even has PAN card and other documents.
The child was born to an unwed woman who put him in a Pune based adoption agency. The adoption agency took care of him till the age of six after which he was sent to foster home and advertisements were issued for his adoption.
The boy was in the foster care of the petitioner woman who then expressed her desire to adopt the child. The bench today posted the matter to July 30 when it would consider issuing guidelines to be followed by the authorities while dealing with such cases.