The Madras High Court has ruled that the External Affairs Ministry is obliged to come up with innovative steps like additional columns to indicate names of biological parents or adoptive parents or step-parents in passport applications.
Justice V Ramasubramanian while passing orders on one B S Deepa's petition, seeking a direction to passport authorities to change the initials of her 13-year-old daughter to that of her second husband, said in his order that the applications must have suitable columns to indicate names of biological parents or adoptive parents or step-parents or all of them.
Deepa submitted that she married one M Irudayaraj in 1998 and had a girl I Kerenshruthi out of the wedlock. They got divorced in 2003 and the child, whose initial was changed as 'D' later, remained with the mother.
In 2013, Deepa married R Lakshmanan, gave the girl in adoption to him and wanted the initial to be changed to 'L'. The girl's passport application was kept pending due to 'discrepancy' between the name of the biological father and father indicated in the application form.
While the birth/hospital records showed it as Irudayaraj, the passport application showed it as Lakshmanan.
Deepa then moved court for a direction to passport authorities to accept the changed initial.
Justice Ramasubramanian said that apart from securing a passport for the minor girl at the earliest, it was also necessary to ensure that the emergent needs do not destroy the future rights of the child.
He then discussed three situations: the first was even if passport authorities changed the name of the biological father, it would be in conflict with the entry in register of births; the second if there is yet another marriage, was it possible to change the name of parents every time there is a divorce followed by a fresh marriage? Lastly, if the biological father leaves behind a large estate, would it be possible for the child to establish its identity and claim the right of inheritance after changing the name in all records?
Holding that the act of giving her daughter in adoption to her stepfather was invalid, the judge said as per Section 9 of Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act,1956, a mother can give her child for adoption only if the biological father is dead, renounced the world or ceased to be Hindu. In this case nothing of the sort had happened to validate adoption of the child.
"The fundamental premise on which the Hindu Law of Adoptions proceeds is that the relationship between the biological parents and the children can never get severed, except in accordance with the provisions of this Act."
The judge then asked passport authorities to issue a passport within four weeks to Deepa's daughter, indicating Lakshmanan as the stepfather in the column reserved for father's name.
