REASSESSING THE ROLE OF LAW IN ADOPTING VULNERABLE CHILDREN IN HINDU SOCIETY

Purportedly, biology doesn't make a difference. Adoption, as an option to child bearing, is a generally acknowledged means for framing a family in most of present day societies. India is a marvelous accident of adoption. India with long tradition of child adoption initially was restricted within the family and was covered by social and religious practices which have gone under changes within the course of times. An adoption arrangement has the impact of severing the parental duties and rights of the biological parents and exchanging those obligations and rights to the new parents. Since emergence of the social change in the 1950's, India concentrated on finding home for vulnerable children such as abandoned, orphan, destitute, illegitimate, and surrendered children. These children are institutionalized and in the long run put for domestic and inter-country adoption. India multiplied the domestic adoption momentum only in late 1980's. From that point forward, critical changes have happened in the field of adoption. This paper will give a short history of adoption in Hindu religious and look at the Hindu adoption and maintenance Act which enacted in India in 1956 as part of the Hindu Code Bills and emergence of inter-country adoption. It also evaluate whether adoption really equals trauma or not. It studies people's propensities to adopt and to relinquish a child for adoption, and evaluate elective theories regarding supply and demand in adoption.