Adoption — Child Welfare Committee Inquiry · 5 February 2026
X v. Child Welfare Committee: Karnataka High Court Lets Child Raised for Ten Years Stay With Caregivers During CWC Inquiry and Directs CARA to Process Adoption Application
High Court of Karnataka · 2026:KHC:6779; WP No. 18481 of 2021
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A child was abandoned at a Mutt when he was three days old, and the head of the Mutt gave him into the custody of a married couple in their fifties on 10 June 2016. In October 2021 the High Court had directed the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) to hand custody to the couple, with the CWC given supervisory visitation rights. The child is now about nine and a half and studies in the fourth standard. The couple's application for adoption is pending before the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA). The CWC said the couple had not produced the child before it, that a complaint had been made that they held him in illegal custody, and asked that they be directed to produce him so it could conduct the inquiry required by the Model Rules.
Justice D.K. Singh noted that the CWC is responsible for inquiring into children in need of care and protection, and that the couple, who had raised the child as their own, had failed to approach the CWC through procedural and legal oversight. The Court directed them to produce the child before the CWC in Bengaluru on 10 March 2026, and directed the CWC to inquire under Rule 19 whether the child's welfare is secured in their custody. It directed that the adoption application be processed soon after the inquiry and, if the couple are found eligible, the child be given to them in adoption, that CARA process it expeditiously, and that the child remain with the couple during the inquiry. The Court did not itself regularise the adoption.
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