Refusing Divorced Woman to Adopt Child as She Is Employed Reflects Medieval Conservative Mindset: Bombay HC

GG News Bureau

Mumbai, 13th April. The Bombay High Court ruled that denying a divorced woman the right to adopt a child because she works and thus cannot give the child personal attention reflects a “mindset of mediaeval conservative concepts.”

In an order issued on Tuesday, the court authorised a 47-year-old woman to adopt her four-year-old niece.

A single justice bench in the order, Gauri Godse stated that a single parent is obligated to work.

A single parent cannot be held ineligible to be an adoptive parent on the ground that he or she is a working person, it said.

The order was issued in response to a petition filed by Shabnamjahan Ansari, a teacher by profession, challenging a March 2022 order of a civil court in Bhusawal (in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district) rejecting her application to adopt a minor girl child on the grounds that she was a divorcee and a working woman.

The woman tried to adopt her sister’s child.

In its order, the civil court stated that because Ms Ansari was a working woman and a divorcee, she would be unable to provide personal attention to the child and that the child should be with her biological parents.

In her petition to the Supreme Court, the woman stated that the lower court’s observation was perverse and unjust.

In its order, the high court stated that the lower court’s reason for rejecting the woman’s application was “unfounded and baseless.”

“The comparison done by the court between the biological mother being a housewife and the prospective adoptive mother (single parent) being a working lady reflects a mindset of the medieval conservative concepts of a family,” Justice Godse observed.

The bench said when law recognises a single parent eligible to be an adoptive parent, the approach of the lower court defeats the very object of the statute.

“Generally, a single parent is bound to be a working person, maybe with some rare exceptions. Thus, by no stretch of imagination, a single parent can be held ineligible to be an adoptive parent on the ground that he or she is a working person,” the high court said.

It said all statutory compliances for adoption in the present case have been done and the lower court rejected the application only on one ground that the adoptive parent is a working lady.

“The reason recorded by the competent court is unfounded, illegal, perverse, unjust and unacceptable,” the high court said in its order.

The high court bench while quashing the lower court order permitted the biological parents to give their minor girl child to Ansari in adoption.

The high court declared Ms Ansari as the girl’s parent. It also directed the Bhusawal Municipal Council to modify the child’s birth certificate to include Ms Ansari’s name as the parent.