Sixty years after Independence, India does not have a comprehensive adoption law applicable to all citizens. Since the 60s, there has been a growing realisation that of all options available to the state and civil society to protect and ensure the well-being of an orphan or a destitute child, adoption is the best. It offers permanency in rehabilitation of biologically unrelated children in a loving family environment. There are three central legislations concerning child adoption. The Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956, (HAMA) is applicable to Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs.

Under HAMA, adoption is irrevocable and confers full status of a biological child, including the right to inherit, on the adopted child. Parents cannot adopt a child of a particular sex, if they already have a biological or adopted child of the same sex. The Guardian and Ward Act, 1890 (GWA) has little as such to do with adoption, but due to the absence of a secular law on adoption, applies to Christians, Muslims, Parsis and Jews.

The relationship between adoptive parents and the adopted child is that of guardian and ward, respectively. GWA allows guardianship of children of same sex. Guardianship under GWA is not irrevocable and the child does not get right of inheritance. The Juvenile Justice Act, 2000 (JJA), including its August 2006 amendment, is a secular law, essentially dealing with juveniles and children in conflict with law, while incidentally providing for adoption as a means of social reintegration. It allows adoption of two children of the same sex and the relationship is that of adoptive parents and adopted child. JJA is unclear about the adopted child's right to inheritance and suffers from several ambiguities.

The pace and quality of legislative reforms in the field of adoption are not commensurate with the rising awareness and growing number of adoptive parents. Parliament, in 1967, 1972, 1978 and 1980, made unsuccessful attempts to enact a uniform adoption law applicable to all citizens.

Being a signatory nation to United Nations Convention on Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the Hague Convention (HC) on Inter-country Adoption, India is committed to enacting appropriate adoption legislations, which are secular in letter and spirit. However, due to varying interpretations of permissibility of child adoption in personal laws of non-Hindu religious communities, politics of minorities and politics within minorities, Parliament has not been able to enact a uniform adoption law. Realising that a uniform law is a distant goal, the government made a well-meaning attempt to secularise adoption through Section 40 and 41 of the JJA, 2000, amended recently in August 2006. It remains to be seen whether its intended benefits to either Hindus or other minorities will materialise.

JJA suffers from major technical infirmities. Can a law that has origins in criminal jurisprudence be relied upon to process legalities associated with a civil matter and deliver outcomes which are legally unquestionable and enforceable? According to Section 5(1) of HAMA, if adoption by a Hindu is not in accordance with its provisions, the same shall be treated as void. Hence, for Hindus, JJA cannot be of any use. JJA has not spelt out the effects of adoption whether the adoption order under JJA will be acceptable proof for issue of birth certificates and passports. It is not clear whether adoption under JJA is irrevocable. It is neither possible nor desirable to pack the whole gamut of legalities involved in adoption in two short sections. A special, secular and comprehensive law on adoption, on the lines of Special Marriages Act, 1954, which is only an optional, enabling law, not superseding any community's personal laws, is called for.

Such a law can, besides spelling out precise effects of adoption on child's rights, also provide specifically for grant of child care leave to adoptive mothers, issue of birth certificates, passports, and consolidate guidelines laid down by Supreme Court in 1984 and inter-country adoption. The last unsuccessful attempt to enact a uniform adoption law was made in 1980. Twenty-six years later, it is time to make a concerted attempt.

The writer is President, Indian Federationof Adoptive Families Associations