Adoptions at record high, SC warns states stalling process

NEW DELHI: Frowning at states' indifference to its direction for creation of a specialised adoption agency (SAA) in each of the country's 760 districts by Jan 31, Supreme Court on Tuesday threatened initiation of contempt proceedings against chief secretaries of defaulting states if the needful was not done by Aug 30.
Additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati presented statistics that reflected poorly on efforts of states to comply with SC's Nov 20, 2023 order for creation of SAAs, pointing out that they have not been set up in 370 districts.
She said states which did not have SAAs in more than 50% of their districts were Delhi, UP, Punjab, Telangana, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Nagaland and Uttarakhand. She said Chandigarh, Goa, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Kerala had fully complied with the SC's direction.
A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said it was unfortunate that states had not complied with the order. "We had warned of coercive steps in the event of non-compliance. We are now compelled to take it as despite repeated efforts, SAAs have not been set up in each district. Chief secretaries of all defaulting states and UTs shall file compliance affidavits on or before Aug 30, failing which they shall remain present personally before the SC to explain why contempt of court proceedings be not initiated against them," the bench ordered.
Bhati said since the intervention of the court to expedite woefully slow adoption process, which is further marred by absence of infrastructure and mechanism to identify and register children legally free for adoption, the process has picked up and the Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA) has achieved a record 4,029 adoptions by couples.
In 2019-20, a total of 3,745 orphaned, abandoned and surrendered children were adopted through CARA, in 2020-21 it was 3,559, in 2021-22, it was 3,405, in 2022-23 it was 3,441 and 2023-24 a total of 4,029 such children were adopted.