THE EVOLUTION OF ADOPTION JURISPRUDENCE IN INDIA: LEGAL FRAMEWORK, PROCEDURES AND CHILD PROTECTION MECHANISMS

This was because of a recently drastic shift in adoption law (which had now moved from a process primarily for the salvation of souls to an internal legal system concerned about the welfare and protection of children). This article is to try and review the adoption laws, with special focus on Historical Importance Of Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act (HAMA), 1956. Adoption practices were even regulated by old Hindu texts meant at getting a boy to perform the last rites of someone in his family lineage — historically giving women an unenviable position of sacrificing their right to equality and what should be a child/human right, agency. The initial major constitutional attempt to preserve some of these constructs, whilst modernising them by removing the gender-specific prohibitions and implicitly recognising daughters, was made in HAMA 1956. But the study identifies a persistent tension within law: HAMA functions as personal law limited to certain communities without having, in contrast with more modern international standards, effective power to monitor decisions and ongoing checking after adoption. The ever-widening ambit of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act that supports a secular x-axis overarching framework focused on coalescing Indian adoption results with international norms aimed at the maximal application on a, preferably, singular basis — the best interests of children. This is a study of these responses within the Central adoption resource authority (CARA) and CARINGS digital portal, which provides an ushering in of technology-induced administrative reforms in order to achieve greater transparency into a system that has been for far too long imbued with private informalities and potential for trafficking. This critique is most effectively represented in cases such as Shabnam Hashmi v. Union of India, where the Supreme Court stated that personal laws regulating the marriages of all Indians have become "problematic" (binding only Hindus and presenting a legal vacuum for other communities like Muslims), and ordered that the government create a Uniform Civil Code for all citizens. The paper highlights some serious issues including, imposition of national attendance in view of immense mismatch between supply and local uptake; inadequate coverage and novel complexities with the legal framework impeding free for adoption approval and newly emerged system bottlenecks constricted by recent provincialisation of jurisdiction to District Magistrates. Hence, the paper recommends a standard law giving effect to contemporary child protection standards over archaic personal laws so that legalisation of adoption can protect Indian children from further violations of their rights.