courtesy: hindustantimes
Passing a huge bunch of directions on a ‘suo moth petition’ with regard to protection of rights of children affected by the pandemic, the bench L Nageswara Rao and Aniruddha Bose said, “The State Governments/Union Territories are directed to take action against those NGO’s/individuals who are indulging in illegal adoptions.”
Complaints were received by the commission that adoption routes were in violation of the Juvenile Justice Act which prescribes adoption through Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA). The violations made were where the identity of the affected children was disclosed in public announcements by agencies and individuals inviting interested persons to adopt them.
NGO named ‘We the Women of India’ had filed an application which informed the court that the adoption requests on social media were found to be fake after it was inquired by the NGO. Advocate for NGO, Shobha Gupta, stressed the need for immediate action to be taken by states and UTs to stop such posts circulating on the social media platforms and demanded action to be taken for people responsible in creating such posts.
The bench also directed to the state and the union territories to “make provisions” for the continuation of education of the children in both private and government schools.
Agencies or individuals who are found responsible for indulging in illegal activities will be held against the law and be taken strict actions upon by the State or the Union Territories. The bench mentions, “Invitation to persons for adoption of orphans is contrary to law, as no adoption of a child can be permitted without the involvement of CARA.”
The Supreme Court on June 1, directed the States to identify children who were abandoned or orphaned or lost their parents due to COVID-19 pandemic.
The data should be uploaded on the website named “Bal Swaraj” run by NCPCR.
NCPCR gave the data to the court on June 6, that there are 30,071 children under this category.