JUDGMENT :-

Ranjan Gogoi, J.

Leave granted.

2. The rejection of the applications filed by the appellant under Sections 7 and 26 of the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890 (hereinafter for short the “Guardians Act”) by the learned Trial Court vide its order dated 17.09.2010 in Guardianship Case No. 2 of 2010 and the affirmation of the said order made by the High Court of Delhi by its order dated 09.07.2012 in FAO No. 425 of 2010 has been put to challenge in the present appeal. By the application filed under Section 7 of the Guardians Act, the appellant had sought for an order of the Court appointing her as the guardian of one female orphan child Tina aged about 10 years whereas by the second application filed under Section 26 of the Guardians Act the appellant had sought permission of the Court to take the child Tina out of the country for the purpose of adoption.

3. The rejection of the aforesaid two applications by the learned Trial Court as well as by the High Court is on a sole and solitary ground, namely, that the appellant, being a single prospective adoptive parent, was aged about 53 years at the relevant point of time whereas for a single adoptive parent the maximum permissible age as prescribed by the Government of India Guidelines in force was 45. Though a no objection, which contained an implicit relaxation of the rigour of the Guidelines with regard to age, has been granted by the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), the High Court did not consider it appropriate to take the said no objection/relaxation into account inasmuch as the reasons for the relaxation granted were not evident on the face of the document i.e. no objection certificate in question.

4. To understand and appreciate the contentious issues that have arisen in the present appeal, particularly, the issues raised by a non-governmental organization that had sought impleadment in the present proceedings (subsequently impleaded as respondent No. 4) it will be necessary to take note of the principles of law governing inter-country adoption, a short resume of which is being made hereinbelow. But before doing that it would be worthwhile to put on record that the objections raised by the Respondent No.4, pertain to the legality of the practice of inter country adoption itself, besides the bonafides of the appellant in seeking to adopt the child involved in the present proceeding and the overzealous role of the different bodies involved in the process in question resulting in side stepping of the laid down norms.

5. The law with regard to inter-country adoption, indeed, was in a state of flux until the principles governing giving of Indian children in adoption to foreign parents and the procedure that should be followed in this regard to ensure absence of any abuse, maltreatment or trafficking of children came to be laid down by this Court in Lakshmi Kant Pandey v. Union of India [(1984) 2 SCC 244]. The aforesaid proceedings were instituted by this Court on the basis of a letter addressed by one Lakshmi Kant Pandey, a practicing advocate of this Court with regard to alleged malpractices indulged in by social and voluntary organizations engaged in the work of offering Indian children in adoption to foreign parents. After an elaborate consideration of the various dimensions of the questions that arose/were raised before the Court and the information laid before it by the Indian Council of Social Welfare, Indian Council of Child Welfare, SOS Children’s Villages of India (respondent No. 2 herein) and also certain voluntary organizations working in the foreign jurisdictions, this Court, after holding in favour of inter country adoption, offered elaborate suggestions to ensure that the process of such adoption is governed by strict norms, and a well laid down procedure to eliminate the possibility of abuse or misuse in offering Indian children for adoption by foreign parents is in place. This Court in Lakshmi Kant Pandey (supra) also laid down the approach that is requir