Adoption

In one line

Adoption under this Act is the route by which an orphan, abandoned or surrendered child gets a family, and since 2021 the order is passed by the District Magistrate.

In exam wording: sections 56 to 64 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 provide for adoption, the eligibility of prospective adoptive parents, the procedures for in-country, inter-country and inter-country relative adoption, the disposal of adoption proceedings, the effect of an adoption order and its reporting.

Why the law has this at all

The Act's whole theory of rehabilitation is that a child belongs in a family. Restoration puts him back in his own; foster care lends him another; adoption gives him one permanently.

But adoption is also the point at which a child protection statute is most open to abuse, because a child who can be given away can be sold. So Chapter VIII is built around three safeguards that recur in every one of its sections.

A single national register of adoptable children. No child may be adopted until the Committee has declared him legally free for adoption under section 38, and every step afterwards runs through a Specialised Adoption Agency and the Authority.

A prohibition on payment. Section 61(1)(c) requires the District Magistrate to satisfy itself that neither the prospective adoptive parents have given or agreed to give, nor the agency or the parent or guardian has received or agreed to receive, any payment or reward in consideration of the adoption, beyond the permitted adoption fees, service charge or child care corpus.

A closed exit from the country. Inter-country adoption is possible only after sixty days of failure to place the child in India, only through authorised foreign adoption agencies and the Authority, and taking a child abroad without a valid order is punishable under section 80.

And section 56 fixes the chapter's relationship with personal law in two sentences: adoption from a relative by another relative, irrespective of their religion, may be made under this Act, but nothing in this Act applies to an adoption under the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956. The two systems run side by side; this one is available to everybody.

Some words this chapter uses

Home study report is the report on the prospective adoptive parents; child study report is the report on the child.

Pre-adoption foster care is the child's placement with the prospective parents before the order.

No objection certificate is issued by the Authority for inter-country adoption, section 2(37).

Section 56: the scope

Sub-section (1). Adoption shall be resorted to for ensuring the right to family for the orphan, abandoned and surrendered children, as per this Act, the rules and the adoption regulations framed by the Authority.