The ordeal of children illegally adopted from a maternity home in Mysuru by childless couples is far from over.
Four months after a city court gave interim custody of three children to couples who had adopted them illegally by paying money, the order has been recalled. This follows an appeal filed by the Mysuru district Child Welfare Committee (CWC).
The Principal Senior Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court in Mysuru has directed the caregivers to hand over custody of the children to the CWC. Two of the children are girls, aged six and seven, while one is a boy aged less than three.
Notice to caregivers
Based on the court order dated August 4, CWC has issued notices to the caregivers to immediately hand over custody of the children. While the six-year-old girl is with her caregivers in Thrissur in Kerala, the boy is with his caregivers in Dakshina Kannada. The seven-year-old girl is in Mysuru.
In September 2016, the CWC had taken custody of 16 children, who were separated from their caregivers in different parts of Karnataka and Kerala after the Mysuru district police busted a child trafficking racket involving sale of newborns from a maternity home in the city.
The children, most of whom were barely a few months old, were put up in three different specialised adoption agencies and childcare homes in Mysuru and neighbouring Mandya district. One girl child, however, passed away at the childcare home in Mandya last year while two others were handed over to their biological parents.
On August 4, the Mysuru court not only recalled its interim order dated April 17, 2018 on reuniting the children with the caregivers, but also dismissed the petitions filed by six other caregivers seeking custody of the children.
The court pointed out that the interim order giving custody of the children to the caregivers had been issued on “humanitarian grounds” taking into consideration the bonding between the children and caregivers.
Mysuru District Child Protection Officer M.K. Kumaraswamy told The Hindu that the Department of Women and Child Development had opposed the court’s interim order as the children had been purchased by the caregivers illegally. “Any move to give them custody of the trafficked children would amount to legalising criminal action,” he said.
However, P.P. Baburaj, counsel for one of the caregivers, said: “The caregivers cannot be termed guilty until the trial is completed and their offence is proved. The prosecution is yet to file a chargesheet even after two years.” He also cited an advisory issued by the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) coming under the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development, New Delhi, that cases under various provisions of Juvenile Justice Act 2015 must be registered against the caregivers from whom the children had been recovered.
According to law, CWC should complete the process of declaring the trafficked children legally free for adoption and offer them to the adoptive parents, who would have registered in the CARA website as per the guidelines on adoption.
