Thanks to Bombay HC, Abandoned Siblings get Adoptive Parents [Read Order]

Vaibhav and Shrutika, the abandoned siblings, finally will live with a mother and father, thanks to Bombay High Court. Justice G.S. Patel, allowed a US based couple, Roy Edward Roos and Jennie to take them in adoption. Following is the heart-warming story of these kids as discernible from the Court orders.

Two kids, Vaibhav and Shrutika, were abandoned by their biological mother when they were five and three years old respectively. They were taken to Child Welfare Committee of Thane which declared them free for adoption. A Foreign Adoption Petition came to be filed before the Bombay High Court as a couple of Indian origin from Canada came forward to adopt the kids.

While this case was pending, the biological mother approached the Child welfare committee and asked for return of Custody. Justice R.S. Dalvi who was hearing the petition, ordered DNA test and the result was positive. However the Court refused to hand over the custody to the birth mother directly, but required the birth mother to show some improvement in her maternal behaviour before the children could be released to her. She was allowed to visit the kids as often as she desires. In the meanwhile the kids were transferred to Children of the World (India) Trust.

But the biological mother never cared to meet the kids and in April 2015, the Court allowed the Trust to have the children once again declared free for adoption in accordance with law. Thereafter a couple from USA came forward to adopt these kids and again a Foreign Adoption Petition was filed.

Justice G.S. Patel before whom the petition came up for hearing remarked “I have before me today what I can only describe as an utterly heart-rending situation. There are two minors, one male and one female, aged today nine and seven years respectively, who have, for the better part of their childhood, been footballed between their birth mother, one agency, another agency, been once previously placed for adoption only to see that possible dream evaporate and are now been suggested for adoption again. Their bond with their mother, if it existed, was broken. The previous adoptive parents came to India and built a bond with them. The birth mother returned with her claim. The bond with the adoptive parents, hard won after a struggle, was broken again. It is difficult to even begin to imagine the kind of trauma these young children must have suffered.”

Allowing the petition after considering all aspects, the Judge said “I say to Roy and Jennie Roos that we have now put in them our trust, and with that trust we have placed in their hands two young children who are in a sense as much ours as they are soon to be theirs. The children have lost more than anyone should. They have already suffered enough; perhaps too much. I have no doubt Mr. &Mrs.Roos’s nature and their faith (I see that both are profoundly devout) will help them form a secure and loving family with Vaibhav and Shrutika, and I am just as sure that they will find in these children an unceasing source of joy and happiness, a glimmer of which I was privileged to see in my Chambers today. These children deserve all that and more.”

Read the Judgment here.