CBI to probe adoption racket cases

Chennai, Sept 5: In a significant development, the Madras High Court today ordered a CBI probe into the 'child adoption racket cases.' A division bench, comprising Justice P D Dinakaran and Justice R Regupathy who ordered a CBI probe, directed the cbi Director (Southern Zone) to depute Ashok Kumar, a senior IPS officer to undertake the investigation of three cases pending in different police stations in Chennai, and other similar cases, which shall be transferred by the state government.
 

The bench disposed of three Habeas corpus petitions from E Kathirvelu, A Salya and K Nageswara Rao of Chennai, whose children were reportedly missing in 1998 and 1999 and later allegedly found to have been given in adoption to parents in Netherlands, Australia and USA during investigation.
 

The bench said the common grievance of the petitioners in these cases was that the agencies who have been engaged to complete the adoption process, had not followed the guideline prescribed by the Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA).
 

In some cases, though the adoptions were made through the court orders, they were based on impersonation and fradulent documents. "However, we do not want to express any opinion on this aspect at this stage as it would affect the investigation in these cases", the bench added.
 

The bench said that the investigation shall also include aspects of whether was any fraud committed on the court concerned by way of impersonation or by creating false and fabricated documents. If so, the CBI should take action in accordance with the law against all those persons involved. The Union and state Governments and the police, including the CB-CID shall extend their full co-operation to the investigation by the CBI. Based on the final investigation report, the CBI shall proceed with the matter in accordance with the law, the bench added.
 

The bench said a copy of the CBI's final report after investigation shall be placed before the court for reporting compliance, after serving a copy in advance to the Ministry of External Affairs, Home Ministry, Department of Social Welfare and CARA for their further guidance in the matter, who shall take appropriate decision for preventive, remedial and compensatory relief in the matter.
 

The bench directed the registry to place the same before the board concerned for reporting compliance of the directions and for further orders, if any required, after three months. (Agencies)