Court urges legal provision to deal with child adoption racket

Taking note of the big racket of illegal sale of children for adoption existing in many parts of the country, a court here has urged the authorities to make it an offence punishable under the Indian Penal Code.

Noting that no steps have taken by the government on the 20-year-old recommendations of the Law Commission for making a legal provision to cover the cases where a woman and child is sold, the court said that there exists an urgent need and a valid justification to extend the scope of legal provisions.

Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau observed that childrens are sold in adoption market, terming it as "Baccha Baazar" for children like for potatoes, tomatoes and onions and a "big racket of illegal sale of children for adoption exists in many states".

"I am pained to observe that even after 20 years of the above recommendations of the Law Commission of India the recommended amendments are yet to be deliberated upon by those who have been entrusted with the responsibility of framing the laws in this country," she said.

"In this background, I reaffirm the recommendations of the Law Commission of India (Supra) and hold that there exists an urgent need and a valid justification to extend the scope of legal provisions so to cover the cases where a woman or a child is sold whatever be the immediate or ultimate objective of the transaction," the court held.

It urged that sale of infant is condemnable and such a conduct has to be visited with criminal penalties as it destroys the humanness of the individual and is a demoralizing act.

"If the law does not punish such a person it may tend to generate and perpetrate in him an insidious abhorrence of human values and a disregard for the dignity of human beings," the court ruled.

The court order came on Tuesday while hearing a case of last year in which a month-old girl was abandoned by her mother, who had handed her over to a hospital's midwife, and the infant was all set to be sold for Rs.1 lakh.

According to police, a trap was led and three accused, Anita, Santosh (midwife) and Islamudin (OT attendant at New Rohini Hospital) were arrested in July 2013.

The police said some decoy women constables had approached the mid-wife claiming one of them was childless despite her marriage eight years ago and wanted to buy the infant.

The court sentenced the trio to three years jail for the offence of cruelly treating the infant under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act.