Australian couple misled officials over abandoned baby

An Australian couple who abandoned a baby boy born via surrogacy in India, misled their country's high commission in New Delhi and were repeatedly warned that the baby could be left stateless.

Freedom of Information (FOI) documents reveal startling new information about the case which states that the couple returned to Australia with a baby girl while leaving her healthy twin brother behind, with full knowledge of Australian government officials, ABC reported on Monday.

E-mails exchanged between the Australian High Commission in New Delhi and government officials in Canberra reveal the couple travelled to India late in 2012 to seek citizenship for a baby girl but told consular staff they would be leaving her twin brother behind because they could not afford him and that they already had a son at home and wanted to "complete our family" with a girl.

The documents state that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) staff as well as the Australian High Commission in New Delhi knew the couple was from New South Wales, where it is illegal to engage in international surrogacy arrangements.

According to the documents, the Australian man then misled consular staff when he told them he would be giving the boy away to some friends in India "who were unable to conceive a child".

The couple was repeatedly told abandoning the boy could leave him stateless because India did not recognise surrogate children as citizens.

"If the parents do not apply for Australian citizenship for the child, the child will be stateless in India, our ability to provide assistance to a non-Australian citizen is limited," a DFAT e-mail on December 19, 2012, said.

The FOI material shows the high commission in New Delhi sought "urgent" advice from three separate government departments in Canberra, and also raised the issue with the office of then prime minister Julia Gillard.

But three days later, consular staff were seemingly given the green light to allow the Australians to return home with just the baby girl.

In October 2014, the Chief Justice of the Family Court, Diana Bryant, said she had been told by concerned consular staff that the baby may have been sold.

"They expressed to me that in fact money had changed hands, and if that's true, then that's basically trafficking children," she said.

However, the documents do not reveal whether a financial transaction took place.