Aiming to increase the adoption figure to at least 10,000 by 2018-19 (from the current about 3000) the Central Adoption Resource Agency has laid down new guidelines, which came into effect from January 2017. The Adoption Regulations 2017 are being seen as a relief to step-parents who want to legally adopt children of the spouses by allowing them to add the name of the stepparent even in the child's birth certificate. Before this, parents were defined as either biological parents or adoptive parents and left out partners or spouses of either of the child’s biological parents. This also meant that neither the stepparent nor the stepchild had any legal duty or responsibility towards each other. The whole process of adoption, however, shall now take place through the online portal of CARA and prospective parents will be able to access profiles of only up to 3 children online. The website for Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System (CARING) shall allot the prospective parents depending on the date on which they uploaded documents for registration and the system shall work on first come first serve basis. The parents can access photographs of the child, medical examination report and the child’s study report on the website. Once the prospective parents decide on a particular child they can reserve the child online. The Specialized Adoption Agencies (SAA) shall contact the parents to initiate the adoption process. However, if the prospective parents do not like the child allotted to them by the system, they shall be relegated to the bottom of the list of prospective parents on the website. This is also an effort to take forward the Prime Minister's dream of a digital India. It shall also promote transparency and efficiency of the adoption process. Some of the salient features of the new regulation include: • Registration of all adoptions including in-family adoptions with CARA. Adoption of a child belonging to a relative or step-children of a partner or spouse has also been included under the new regulation. • Adoption procedures by relatives living abroad have also been specified in these regulations. • To simplify these procedures, the age criterion for a prospective adoptive parent has been relaxed for relative or in-family adoptions and for adoption by step-parents. • The eligibility limit for adoption has been reduced from 4 to 3 children. • Couples with three or more children said shall now not be considered for adoption unless in the case of those with special needs or for those who are hard to place, as mentioned in the regulations, and also for relative adoption and adoption by step-parents. • The time period granted to the prospective adoptive parents for matching and accepting a child after the reservation has been increased to 20 days from the previous 15 days. • The home study report shall emphasize the preparedness of the parents and their ability to support a child in adoption beyond their immediate need. • In case the child is received in adoption, the District Child Protection Unit shall be given three working days to place advertisements or notifications to locate the parents or guardians of the child as against the 72 hours granted earlier. • The District Child Protection Unit has also been directed to maintain a panel of professionally qualified and trained social workers to facilitate the process of adoption. • The adoptive parents can indicate their preference of choice of state from which they wish to adopt a child at the time of registration on the website. They can also choose preferences for gender and age of the child. • Parents can also choose All India if they do not have any particular preference of region of birth of the child. • The parents shall then be automatically registered at all the Specialized Adoption Agencies of the state or states that they may have a opted for. • Post adoption follow-ups and assurance of the well-being of the child who has been adopted shall be looked into by CARA. These regulations also take care of the vastly different personal laws pertaining to different religions in relation to adoption in India. As per the Hindu law, an adoptive family is barred from adopting a child of the same gender as their own child or grandchild or even great-grandchild. The parent is also required to be 21 years older to the child while adopting a child of the opposite sex. The Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act doesn’t provide any process of Court to sanctify the adoption of a child, which may cause legal complications for the family at a later stage.
Also, as there is no law for adoption by Muslims, Christians, and Parsis they have to approach the court under the Guardians and Wards Act if they want to adopt a child. However, this adopted child shall only be considered to be under their foster care and shall be free to break all connections with the adoptive parents once he/she attains majority.