Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Thursday passed a landmark judgment in the case of adoption of a child in the womb, clarifying that a child in the womb cannot be adopted. The case was taken up by the HC after a woman claiming to be the biological mother of a child filed a petition in the court demanding his custody back from his adoptive parents.
A resident of Patiala, the petitioner said that a couple from the same city had expressed their desire to adopt her child while she was pregnant with it. The couple had also reportedly completed all the legal paperwork required for the adoption process. The couple, therefore, took the child after it was born from the woman, supposedly as their adopted child.
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However, the woman is now claiming that since all the paperwork was done when the child was still in her womb, there is no registered certificate of her child to support the said paperwork done during the adoption. Citing this, she appealed to the High Court to return her child back to her.
While hearing the case, the High Court accepted the arguments of the petitioner and said that there is no such law in the Hindu Adoption Act that allows or mentions the adoption of a child while it's still in the mother's womb. The deciding bench also said that since there was no registered certificate attached to the child, the child should be handed over to the real parents.
