{"id":1421,"date":"2024-01-29T15:48:06","date_gmt":"2024-01-29T10:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/?p=1421"},"modified":"2024-01-29T15:48:06","modified_gmt":"2024-01-29T10:18:06","slug":"supreme-court-issues-directions-to-expedite-adoption-process-under-juvenile-justice-act-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/supreme-court-issues-directions-to-expedite-adoption-process-under-juvenile-justice-act-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme court issues directions to expedite adoption process under Juvenile Justice Act"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE TEMPLE OF HEALING\u00a0 \u00a0 [<\/strong>Petitioner(s)] Vs.\u00a0 <\/strong>UNION OF INDIA\u00a0 \u00a0[<\/strong>Respondent(s)]<\/h1>\n

Writ Petition(s)(Civil) No(s). 1003\/2021<\/p>\n

(3JB, J.B. PARDIWALA, MANOJ MISRA JJ. And D.Y. CHANDRACHUD CJI.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Facts:<\/u><\/strong> During the course of the deliberations before this Court, besides filing an affidavit dealing with the issue of adoption under the Juvenile Justice Act, CARA has placed certain suggestions for the consideration of the Court:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • The need to ensure expeditious identification of children falling in the OAS category;<\/li>\n
  • The need to revamp administrative infrastructure in the States, particularly, in the SAAs and DCPUs;<\/li>\n
  • The need to ensure that accountability in the maintenance of the timelines laid down for completing every process in the stage of adoption;<\/li>\n
  • The need to compile adequate data so as to channelise children who are placed in Foster Care (Children in need of care and protection) into the adoption process; and<\/li>\n
  • The need to clarify that the process of adoption under the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act (HAMA) is independent of the process which has been stipulated under the Juvenile Justice Act 2015.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Issue:<\/u><\/strong> The need for issuance of directions to expedite the adoption process under Juvenile Justice Act, 2015.<\/p>\n

    Advocates on behalf of counsel for petitioner:<\/u><\/strong> Mr. Rohan Shah, Adv.<\/p>\n

    It is apparent that as a result of the mismatch between the number of children legally available for adoption and PAPs who are registered on the portal, the process of adoption is interminably long. By CARA\u2019s official estimate, at least three to four years elapse in the process. Apart from the above aspects, it has come to the knowledge of the Court during the course of the hearing that generally speaking, there is a preference for young children in the age group of up to two years. CARA\u2019s tabulation indicates that 69.4% of registered PAPs opt for children in the age group of 0 to 02 years; 10.3% in the age group of 02 to 04 years; and 14.8% in the age group of 04 to 06 years. Sections 58 and 59 of the Juvenile Justice Act 2015, as amended in 2021, read with Regulations and Adoption Regulations 2022 lay down the procedure for child referral for PAPs. In terms of the referral procedure, a child with normal health status is referred to PAPs in terms of their preferences given at the time of registration and their current seniority. Preferences relating to age, gender and stage are factored in.<\/p>\n

    Advocates on behalf of counsel for respondent:<\/u><\/strong> Mr. Tushar Mehta, SG (NP)<\/p>\n

    during the course of hearing, both Ms Aishwarya Bhati, Additional Solicitor General and Dr Jagannath Pati, Director CARA have categorically stated before the Court that the process of adoption under HAMA is independent of the Regulations of 2022 which have been framed under the Juvenile Justice Act 2015. It has been stated that CARA intervenes only when an adoption certificate is required by the adoptive parents in order to facilitate the travel of the adopted child to a country outside India. CARA has stated in its note submitted to this Court that based on the fact that HAMA is a statute governing the personal law for Hindus, the Ministry of Women and Child Development has issued a notification on 17 September 2021 entrusting CARA with the duty of issuing documents for inter-country adoption concluded under HAMA wherein Non-Resident Indians\/Overseas Citizens of India Card Holder parents desire to relocate the adopted child abroad. The note submitted before the Court also indicates that a central challenge is to ensure that HAMA adoptions align with international adoption conventions, such as the 1993 Hague Inter-country Adoption Convention. It has been stated that although CARA has been processing adoption cases of NRI\/OCI PAPs, the receiving countries do not necessarily consider HAMA to be in conformity with the Hague Convention procedure. CARA has thus far issued adoption support letters to NRI\/OCI PAPs in 66 cases since May 2022.<\/p>\n

    Held:<\/u><\/strong>The court accepted the suggestions and issued a direction to the effect that an exercise of identification shall be carried out on a bimonthly basis, the first of which shall be carried out by 7 December 2023. In addition to the above direction, the nodal department in every State\/Union Territory, in-charge of implementing the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 shall collect and compile data which shall be made available to the Secretary in the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development and to the Director CARA on or before 31 January 2024. This data shall be along the following lines :<\/p>\n

    (a) To identify and compile data on potential children for adoption- especially amongst those who are languishing in Child Care Institutions (CCIs) and those not reaching CCIs.<\/p>\n

    (b) Compilation of data on registration of all OAS children of the district on CARINGS and monitoring of CWCs for timely determination of legal status of children.<\/p>\n

    (c) States\/UTs need to take up timely publications in cases of orphan\/abandoned children before declaring those children legally free for adoption and conduct a comprehensive assessment of the child protection needs in the district;<\/p>\n

    (d) Collection and compilation of data on the vacant positions in different State Adoption Resource Agencies.<\/p>\n

    (e) Collection and compilation of data on identification of children residing in CCIs (not visited by their parents for more than a year or with unfit parents) as well as potential children for adoption from the community.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    THE TEMPLE OF HEALING\u00a0 \u00a0 [Petitioner(s)] Vs.\u00a0 UNION OF INDIA\u00a0 \u00a0[Respondent(s)] Writ Petition(s)(Civil) No(s). 1003\/2021 (3JB, J.B. PARDIWALA, MANOJ MISRA JJ. And D.Y. CHANDRACHUD CJI.)   Facts: During the course of the deliberations before this Court, besides filing an affidavit dealing with the issue of adoption under the Juvenile Justice Act, CARA has placed certain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judgement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1421"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1425,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421\/revisions\/1425"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}