R R GEORGE CHRISTOPHER Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) WE are guilty of many errors and many faults but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life, Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer. "Tomorrow". His name is "Today", -quoted from Gabriela Mistral

(2.) ".. Whether a civilized State committed to the Rule of law, governed by a written constitution and signatory to International Conventions on the Rights of a Child, could deny to a Section of its own citizens the right to adopt a child and to give that child, a home, a name and nationality?" This is the question posed by Justice Rebello of the Bombay High Court in Manuel Theodore D'souza and Another (see II (2000) DMC 292).

(3.) JUSTICE Rebello did not stop with that question. He gave a Constitutional basis for the Courts to evolve a solution on the issue of adoption in the following words: "Many of us examining such issues forget that we have taken a solemn oath to protect and defend the Constitution That requires examining legislation and fundamental rights in such a manner that the tears of the abandoned and homeless infants are wiped away, of course within the constitutional parameters. In this matter the exercise of powers of parens patriae and Article 226 to give effect to the fundamental rights, what is in issue are the enforceability of directive principles and International Covenants to which India is a signatory.