MARIA CHAYA CSHUPP Vs. DIRECTOR GENERAL OF POLICE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard the Counsel for the parties.

(2.) The facts of the case are as follows : The petitioner is a German national and is said to be residing with her adoptive parents in Germany. The petitioner claims that as a child she was an inmate of the institution known as Society for Sisters of Charity Nirmala Social Welfare Centre, Respondent No. 5 herein. It is a Child Welfare Agency. The petitioner claims that she recollects having grown-up at the said centre. It is said that when the petitioner was six years old, she was given up for inter-country adoption by the Respondent No.5 - Institution. She is said to have been taken in adoption by Shri. Wolfgang Schupp and Smt. Ingrid Schupp of Germany in March 1981. They had taken the assistance of one Smt. Carta Wiedeking and her Adoption Agency M/s. Pro Infante, in Germany. The petitioner was 32 years old on the date of the petition and is in search of her biological mother. The petitioner has little information of her birth and her parents. She believes that her biological mother had placed her in the care of Respondent No. 5 - Institution for her schooling only and not for being sent out of the country in adoption. The petitioner suspects that she was possibly kidnapped and then given up for adoption with the active assistance of Respondent No.5 - Institution. The petitioner has arrived at these conclusions given the concerted effort to conceal material records and the sequence of events leading to her adoption - which is mired in controversy, leaving even her adoptive parents in confusion - as they had placed faith in various third parties, in India and abroad, in adopting the petitioner. The petitioner has in her possession documents indicating her date of birth differently, she is not sure whether her date of birth is 24-3-1976 or 8-12-1975. that is from information furnished to her adoptive parents by the German Agency Pro Infante - prior to her adoption.

(3.) It is the petitioner's contention that she has learnt in retrospect that respondent No. 5 has a strong nexus with one Shri. Maxim Lobo, a practicing Advocate who had retired as a District and Sessions Judge, who specialised in Inter-country adoptions. And it is evident that Shri. Lobo had engineered and instituted proceedings in a Court at Madurai to enable the petitioner to be adopted possibly through a willing impersonator on a false and misleading petition. There is no Deed of Relinquishment by her biological mother giving up the petitioner in adoption. The petitioner's efforts to ascertain whether there was indeed such a relinquishment deed have not been fruitful either through the German Adopting Agency or through the fifth respondent - Institution. The petitioner on being stone - walled by Respondent No.5, which failed to co-operate with her in ascertaining the truth - has approached the jurisdictional Police at Ullal, Mangalore on the refusal by Respondent No. 5 to provide her with the information. She has also approached the Director, Women and Child Welfare, Mangalore in this regard. But it has been in vain.. It is therefore the petitioner's case that Respondent No. 5 is clandestinely and diabolically engaged in placing young children for inter-country adoption through unscrupulous elements and Institutions - amounting to trafficking in children. The petitioner's plight and her search for details of her mother has been widely reported in several newspapers. The petitioner claims that she has psychological reasons for the urge to know about her biological mother. The petitioner is hot the first to come in search of one's roots. It is the petitioner's case that there are regular news reports of people such as the petitioner who have successfully re-united with their biological parents. A person's right to know of one's biological parents is well entrenched in law in most civilized countries around the world. It is the petitioner's contention that Respondent No. 5 is feigning ignorance of the knowledge of the biological mother of the petitioner - only in order to cover up its nefarious and illegal role in kidnapping and placing the petitioner for inter-country adoption. It is in this background that the present petition is filed.