The Supreme Court on Thursday said it would hear next week a plea seeking a direction to the Centre to remove “anomalies” in the grounds of adoption and guardianship and making them uniform for all citizens.
The plea came up for hearing before a bench, comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, which said that the matter be listed next wee. The plea, filed by advocate and BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay,
has sought to declare that the “discriminatory grounds” of adoption and guardianship are violative of Articles 14, 15, 21 of the Constitution and also to frame “uniform guidelines” for adoption and guardianship for all citizens. Article 14 of the Constitution deals with equality before the law, Article 15 prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth and Article 21 deals with protection of life and personal liberty.
The plea, filed through advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey, has alleged that current practice of adoption is blatantly discriminatory as Hindus have a codified law of adoption but Muslims, Christians and Parsis don’t.
“Adopted child has the right to inherit property under the Hindu law but not under the Muslim, Christian and Parsi law. Adopted child by the Hindus can become a legal heir whereas adopted child by Christians, Muslim, Parsis cannot,” the plea said.