Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court directed the child welfare committee to issue orders expeditiously to decide who has to take care of the 15 children placed in its custody — the biological parents or those who adopted the infants.
The children they were rescued by the Medipally police of Rachakonda after busting a child-trafficking racket in May.
The court directed the committee to pass the order within two weeks from November 28. The court also directed the authorities to decide on the applications filed by adoptive parents seeking adoption of the children within four weeks.
According to the police FIR, the children were reportedly sold by their biological parents to the adoptive parents through a mediator identified as Shobha Rani, who ran a clinic at Ramakrishnanagar Colony of Peerzadiguda.
The police said she was selling a girl child for Rs 5 lakh and a male child for Rs 6 lakh.
After the police placed the children with the child welfare committee, the adoptive parents approached the High Court seeking custody of the children.
The child welfare department and the police refused, stating that they had not followed procedure under the Adoption Act.
The parents moved the High Court and a single judge gave liberty to follow the procedure under the Adoption Act for continuation of the custody of the children by executing valid deeds. The child welfare department challenged the order. A division bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J. Sreenivas Rao set aside the single judge orders.
As the biological parents were available and adoptive parents were claiming the custody of the children, the bench ordered that the child welfare committee to take a decision after conducting the social investigation.
Since the committee did not do so the court directed it to take the decision expeditiously.
