Lawyer urges SC to formulate framework

A lawyer, who had adopted a girl child after waiting for 3 years, has urged the Supreme Court to direct the concerned authorities to formulate a legislative and administrative framework relating to the process of adoption in India.
The petitioner, Srisabarirajan, who is a lawyer practising in the Bombay High Court, has filed the petition through advocate Vishnu Kant. The Petitioner along with his wife, has adopted a girl child, after waiting for 3 years.
He had preferred the present petition, inter alia, for the enforcement of various fundamental rights and protections accorded to the children in need of protection and care, under the Constitution of India. It seeks immediate and emergency intervention of the supreme Court on certain grave issues which currently exist with respect to the adoption of children under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (JJ Act) and the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956 (HAMA Act), protection and care, including the adoption of children with special needs, foster care, and sponsorship.
The petitioner has expressed concern about the declining rate of adoption and cited an affidavit filed by the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) before the top court for the period between April 2020 and January 11, 2022. It states that 10094 children are orphaned, 1,36,910 children have lost either parent, and 488 children were abandoned after the onset of COVID-19. Despite the huge increase in the number of orphaned, abandoned, and surrendered children, the number of children adopted under the JJ Act is meagre and continues to decline.
Hence, the petitioner has sought to declare that it is the constitutional and statutory obligation of the respondents to secure the rights of the children in need of care and protection, in relation to non-institutional care and protection of the children in the forms of adoption, foster care, and sponsorship. He has also sought a structure of accountability, monitoring, and reporting within the administrative machinery and to make public on a half-yearly basis all statistics relating to children in difficult circumstances, children in the stream of adoption, and children in the stream of foster care.
The petition tends to direct the respondent to create a full and accurate census of total children in the country and children in different categories who are in difficult circumstances, and to consider the formation of a ministry and administrative structure specifically devoted to the care, education, and well-being of the children in India.
Additionally, the petitioner has sought to establish a specialised adoption agency, under Section 65 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, in every district of the country, where currently there is no single special adoption agency. Also, the respondents should take necessary and immediate steps to implement the recommendations made by the 118th Report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on ‘Review of Guardianship and Adoption Laws’, presented to the Parliament on 8th August 2022, including revamping the entire adoption laws to make them uniform, comprehensive, more transparent, accountable, verifiable, less bureaucratic, and applicable to all, irrespective of religion, in order to make adoptions easier and less cumbersome.
The petition seeks to formulate and issue guidelines for timely and speedy actions by the authorities/stakeholders under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 to ensure that “children in need of protection and care are immediately provided with the best possible and available alternate care (in terms of adoption, foster care, kinship care, and sponsorship) without any administrative delay.”
It calls on the Central Government and State Governments to formulate a policy for creating awareness among the common people—including aggressive advertising campaigns in all forms of media—as to the existing procedures for adoption, foster care, kinship care, and sponsorship, and allocate sufficient and separate funds on a regular basis for creating such awareness.
The Supreme Court has tagged the petition with other matters dealing with adoption and listed it for further hearing on 4th November.