Court hears woman who wants adopted grandkids back

Swati Deshpande, TNN

MUMBAI: The Bombay HC on Monday questioned an old woman in search of her two granddaughters who had launched a legal battle to initiate a probe

against a private adoption agency in Pune and the Child Welfare Committee that had handed them over to a Spanish couple in adoption.

Kisabai Lokhande (66), an illiterate vegetable vendor from Karad, said she wanted her granddaughters back and would look after them. The court has reserved the order.

The woman had pleaded that her consent-before branding the girls as `abandoned'-was never taken though she had only "kept the girls in a remand home for their education and boarding'', and her whereabouts were known to the CWC and the authorities. "I want to see them again... they were taken outside without my knowledge...'' she said.

Vinod Joshi, lawyer for Central Adoption Resource Centre, said the adoption process complied with all legalities while CWC asked why the woman had not filed a petition to trace her missing daughter and was focusing only on her granddaughters. The woman's lawyer, however, said that various agencies had connived to get the girls declared "destitute'' in December 2004 as a legal requirement to facilitate their adoption.