The Adoption Agencies and the Authority

In one line

The Specialised Adoption Agency does the work of an adoption, the State Agency co-ordinates it, and the Central Adoption Resource Authority regulates the whole of it.

In exam wording: sections 65 to 73 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 provide for Specialised Adoption Agencies, the duties of other institutions housing adoptable children, the State Adoption Resource Agency, and the constitution, functions, powers, reporting and accounts of the Central Adoption Resource Authority.

Why the law has this at all

Adoption cannot be run case by case, because the two sides of it are never in the same place.

The child is in a district; the family that wants him may be in another State or another country. Somebody has to hold a list of children who are legally free for adoption, a list of families who have been found eligible, and the rules by which the two are matched. And because the matching decides a child's whole life, and because money can distort it, that somebody must be a regulator, not a broker.

So the Act builds a three-tier structure. At the bottom the Specialised Adoption Agency, recognised in each district, which does the actual work: getting the child declared legally free, preparing the home study report, matching, and filing for the order. In the middle the State Adoption Resource Agency, which deals with adoptions in the State under the Authority's guidance. At the top the Central Adoption Resource Authority, which promotes in-country adoption, facilitates inter-State adoption, regulates inter-country adoption, frames the regulations everything else runs on, and is India's Central Authority under the Hague Convention.

And because a structure without teeth is a structure that fails a child slowly, the Act attaches fines to delay. An agency that does not get a child declared legally free, or does not complete the home study report, or does not obtain the order within the stipulated time, is punishable with up to fifty thousand rupees, and loses its recognition on repeated default.

Some words this chapter uses

Recognition, not registration, is what a Specialised Adoption Agency receives, from the State Government.

The Authority is the Central Adoption Resource Authority, section 2(7); the State Agency is the State Adoption Resource Agency, section 2(53).

Central Authority under the Hague Convention is the Government department recognised as such, section 2(11).

Section 65: Specialised Adoption Agencies

Sub-section (1). The State Government shall recognise one or more institutions or organisations in each district as a Specialised Adoption Agency, in the manner provided by the adoption regulations, for the rehabilitation of orphan, abandoned or surrendered children, through adoption and non-institutional care.