High Court reserves order on Haynes plea in adoption case

The Bombay High Court on Monday reserved its order in an adoption ‘racket’ case where a 27-year-old woman was deported from the United States following alleged fraudulent adoption process.

Jennifer Haynes, a mother of two, who was adopted by American couple George and Melissa Hancox in July 1989, had moved the high court seeking action against the Americans for International Aid and Adoption (AIAA) that had processed her adoption papers.

The Central Adoption Resources Authority (CARA) had last year filed a report stating that alleged fraudulent adoption process was carried out by an American agency (in her case).

The high court on Monday indicated that it is likely to dismiss Haynes’s petition seeking the de-registeration of the adoption agencies that sent her to the US in 1989 without, as alleged by her, following proper procedures.

Haynes was deported by the US immigration authorities as her citizenship formalities were not completed at the time of her adoption. She has claimed in her petition that she had a rough childhood in 50 different foster homes in the US and faced sexual abuse.

After hearing the arguments, Justice FI Rebello remarked, “The grievance now is not that of adoption but of citizenship.” The court had earlier directed Haynes to apply to the US embassy on the grounds of humanitarian parole. Additional solicitor general D J Khambata had said that the Centre would support her application. However, her advocate Pradeep Havnur told the court that without a high-level intervention Haynes’s application will not be considered. The court observed that as an adult Haynes had not applied for US citizenship and continued to live in the US as a child of her adoptive parents.

Haynes was convicted in a case of illegal possession of drugs in July 2004 and was under probation in prison. When her case reached the Board of Immigration, it was found that her citizenship formalities were incomplete at the time of her adoption in 1989 and they decided to deport her. She recently traced her brother in Ambarnath.