Adopting an Indian child when you live abroad

Inter-country adoption of an Indian child by a Non-Resident Indian, an Overseas Citizen of India, or a foreign national is no longer the loosely-supervised activity that the Supreme Court confronted in Laxmi Kant Pandey v Union of India, AIR 1984 SC 469. Sections 59 and 60 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 and the Adoption Regulations, 2022 framed by the Central Adoption Resource Authority establish a single regulated channel — registration on the CARINGS portal, home-study by an Authorised Foreign Adoption Agency in the receiving country, child referral and matching, district-court order under Section 61, a No-Objection Certificate from CARA, the conformity certificate under Article 23 of the Hague Convention on Inter-Country Adoption, 1993, and a two-year post-adoption follow-up. Shabnam Hashmi v Union of India, (2014) 4 SCC 1 made the route available across community lines; Stephanie Joan Becker v State, (2013) 12 SCC 786 affirmed single-parent inter-country adoption. This guide traces the pipeline end-to-end and identifies the doctrinal points that remain unsettled.

Inter-country adoption in India sits on a chronology that runs against the usual statutory direction. The procedure was written first by the Supreme Court, then codified by Parliament, and only thereafter calibrated by international treaty. In Laxmi Kant Pandey v Union of India, AIR 1984 SC 469, a single letter by a Delhi advocate alleging trafficking of children by voluntary adoption agencies provoked the Court — sitting under its writ jurisdiction — to write a complete procedural code for the adoption of Indian children by foreign applicants. Every foreign applicant was required to be sponsored by an agency licensed by the government of the receiving country; every application was to be filed for the foreigner's appointment as guardian under the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890; the home-study report, financial standing, and post-adoption follow-up framework were specified at the level of judicial direction. The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 followed; the 2015 Act consolidated and extended the framework; the Adoption Regulations, 2022 are now the operative procedural instrument. India acceded to the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Inter-Country Adoption, 1993 on 6 June 2003, which made every inter-country adoption from India a treaty event with downstream consequences in the receiving country. The statute, the regulations, and the treaty now work together — but the doctrinal anchors continue to be the Supreme Court judgments that pre-date them.

The statutory foundation — Sections 59 and 60 of the JJ Act, 2015

Section 59 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 is the substantive provision for inter-country adoption. Sub-section (1) opens the route — if an orphaned, abandoned or surrendered child has not been placed in adoption with an Indian prospective adoptive parent within sixty days of being declared legally free for adoption, that child is available for inter-country adoption. The provision codifies the "Indian-first" preference that Laxmi Kant Pandey had directed — domestic placement is the priority; inter-country placement is the residual route where no Indian applicant has come forward within the stipulated period. Section 2(20) defines "inter-country adoption" as the adoption of a child by a person of Indian origin, or by a Non-Resident Indian, or by a foreigner who is resident outside India.

Section 59(2) routes the inter-country application through the Authorised Foreign Adoption Agency in the receiving country (a "Central Authority" or an accredited body recognised by the Central Authority of that country under Article 6 of the Hague Convention, 1993) or, in countries that have not designated a Central Authority, through the concerned government department of the receiving country. Section 59(3) prescribes the matching by CARA based on the seniority of the foreign applicant on the registration roster and the medical and special-needs profile of the available children. Section 59(7) makes the No-Objection Certificate (NOC) issued by CARA a precondition to the child travelling out of India after the court order. Section 59(8) provides for the Authorised Foreign Adoption Agency to submit progress reports of the adopted child to CARA for a period of two years from the date of arrival of the child in the receiving country.

Section 60 of the JJ Act, 2015 deals with the adoption of a child by a person of Indian origin or a Non-Resident Indian who is living abroad — distinct from a foreign national resident abroad. The provision aligns the NRI and OCI routes with the foreign-resident route in respect of the regulatory pipeline, but preserves the priority of NRIs and OCIs over foreign-national applicants in the child-referral order. Section 60(4) requires the application of the NRI or OCI applicant to be filed in the district court of the place where the Specialised Adoption Agency (SAA) holding the child is located. Section 60 read with Section 59 thus produces a three-tier preference — Indian-resident applicants first, NRI and OCI applicants second, foreign-national applicants last — within the inter-country roster.

The Adoption Regulations, 2022 — the operative procedural instrument

The Adoption Regulations, 2022 were notified by CARA on 23 September 2022 in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 68 of the JJ Act, 2015, superseding the Adoption Regulations, 2017. The Regulations are the working text — the JJ Act sets out the architecture, the Regulations supply the procedural detail.

Regulation 5 defines the eligibility of prospective adoptive parents (PAPs). The applicant must be physically, mentally, emotionally and financially capable; must not have any life-threatening medical condition; and must consent to adopt subject to the criteria. Regulation 5(2) sets the age limits — for a child up to four years, the combined age of the couple cannot exceed eighty-five years (single applicant: not exceeding forty); for a child between four and eight years, combined age not exceeding ninety years (single applicant: forty-five); for a child between eight and eighteen years, combined age not exceeding one hundred and ten years (single applicant: fifty-five). The minimum age difference between the child and the PAP is twenty-five years. Regulation 5(3) restricts joint adoption to PAPs in a "stable marital relationship" of at least two years; a single applicant — whether man or woman — may adopt, with the express stipulation that a single male is not eligible to adopt a girl child. Regulation 5(4) caps the number of biological or adopted children in the family at three for general adoption, with an exception for the adoption of children with special needs and hard-to-place children.

Regulations 17 to 25 set out the inter-country procedure. Regulation 17 governs the registration of NRI, OCI and foreign-resident PAPs on the CARINGS (Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System) portal of CARA. Regulation 18 prescribes the documentation — passport, OCI card or proof of Indian origin where applicable, residence permit in the receiving country, two recommendation letters, medical certificate, marriage certificate (for couple applicants), employment certificate and proof of financial standing. Regulation 19 governs the Home Study Report — for NRI and OCI applicants, conducted by the Authorised Foreign Adoption Agency in the receiving country, valid for three years from the date of preparation. Regulation 20 provides for child referral by CARA based on seniority. Regulation 21 prescribes the matching and reservation period — six referrals are presented sequentially, and the PAPs have forty-eight hours to reserve and twenty days to accept. Regulation 22 governs the pre-adoption foster care arrangement. Regulation 23 prescribes the court application under Section 61 of the JJ Act. Regulation 24 governs the NOC and the conformity certificate. Regulation 25 prescribes the post-adoption follow-up.

The Hague Convention on Inter-Country Adoption, 1993

The Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Inter-Country Adoption, 1993 — to which India acceded on 6 June 2003 — establishes the bilateral framework that overlays the JJ Act. Article 4 of the Convention places on the Central Authority of the State of origin (here, CARA) the duty of establishing that the child is adoptable, that the inter-country adoption is in the best interests of the child, that the appropriate consents have been given freely and not procured by payment, and that the consent of the mother (where required) was given only after the birth of the child. Article 5 places the corresponding duties on the Central Authority of the receiving State — verifying the PAP's eligibility, ensuring counselling, and confirming that the child will be authorised to enter and reside permanently in the receiving State.

Article 17 prescribes that any decision to entrust a child to PAPs may be made in the State of origin only if both Central Authorities have agreed in writing that the adoption may proceed. Article 21 governs the situation in which the placement is not in the best interests of the child after the child's arrival in the receiving State — withdrawal of the child, alternative care arrangements, return to the State of origin as a last resort. Article 23 is the citizen-facing provision of the treaty — an adoption certified by the competent authority of the State in which the adoption was made as having been made in accordance with the Convention is to be recognised by operation of law in all other Contracting States; this is the "Hague conformity certificate" that the receiving-country immigration authority requires for the issue of a visa, residence permit or onward citizenship registration. Regulation 24 of the Adoption Regulations, 2022 maps the Article 23 obligation onto the Indian procedure — CARA issues the conformity certificate after the court order under Section 61 has been pronounced and the child is ready for travel.

The CARINGS pipeline — registration to seniority

The procedural pipeline begins with PAP registration on the CARINGS portal. An NRI, OCI or foreign-resident applicant — using the credentials of the Authorised Foreign Adoption Agency in the receiving country — uploads the documentation prescribed by Regulation 18 and pays the registration fee. The Authorised Foreign Adoption Agency is responsible for the truthfulness of the documents; the Home Study Report under Regulation 19 is prepared on its own or through a licensed social-work agency in the receiving country and uploaded within sixty days of registration. CARA verifies the documentation and seniority is assigned from the date of registration on receipt of the complete file. The seniority order — within each preference tier of NRI, OCI and foreign-national — is preserved through the matching process.

The Home Study Report is the most consequential document in the pipeline. Regulation 19 requires it to cover the social and family background of the PAPs, motivation to adopt, financial and accommodation profile, marital relationship, parenting skills and personality of the applicants, and the post-adoption arrangements proposed. The validity of the Home Study Report is three years; if the PAPs do not complete the adoption within that period, the report must be updated.

Child referral and matching — Regulation 21

Once the PAP profile is in the active seniority roster, CARA generates child referrals through the CARINGS portal based on seniority and the matching criteria — age range opted, gender preference (subject to the single-male restriction), siblings, and acceptance or otherwise of children with special needs. Regulation 21 contemplates a sequential referral procedure — the PAPs are shown up to six children at a time and have forty-eight hours to "reserve" the profile and twenty days from reservation to accept and proceed. If the PAPs do not accept, the child is referred to the next PAP in seniority. The reservation does not create any right in the PAPs over the child; the legal status of the child remains that of an orphaned, abandoned or surrendered child legally free for adoption under Section 38 of the JJ Act read with the Child Welfare Committee's declaration.

Where the PAPs accept the referral, the child is placed in pre-adoption foster care with the Specialised Adoption Agency in India until the court order is obtained and the NOC issued. The pre-adoption foster care period — typically four to six weeks during which the court application is filed and disposed of — allows for the bonding visit by the PAPs and the preparation of the court file.

The court order — Section 61 of the JJ Act, 2015

The application for the adoption order is filed under Section 61 of the JJ Act, 2015 read with Regulation 23 in the district court (or Family Court where established) within whose jurisdiction the Specialised Adoption Agency holding the child is located. The application is to be filed within fifteen days of the receipt by the SAA of the acceptance from the PAPs. The court is required to dispose of the application within two months of its filing. The application is heard in camera; the proceedings are confidential. The court order is to be passed in the format prescribed in Schedule 38 of the Adoption Regulations, 2022.

Section 61(2) requires the court to satisfy itself that the adoption is for the welfare of the child, having due regard to the wishes of the child considered against the age and understanding of the child, and that the PAPs have not received and have not agreed to receive any payment in consideration of the adoption other than such payment as the court may sanction. The court order under Section 61(3) declares the child to be the legitimate child of the PAPs with effect from the date of the order, with all the rights, privileges and responsibilities of a biological child. Section 62 makes the order effective across all communities — the legal effect of the JJ Act adoption is uniform irrespective of the personal-law background of the PAPs.

The court fee for the application is governed by the state Court Fees Act; the SAA pays an administrative fee to CARA as prescribed in Schedule 11 of the Adoption Regulations, 2022. The court order is appealable under Section 101 of the JJ Act before the Sessions Court within thirty days.

The No-Objection Certificate and the conformity certificate — Regulation 24

After the Section 61 order, the SAA forwards the certified copy of the court order to CARA. CARA issues two distinct documents under Regulation 24. The first is the No-Objection Certificate (NOC) — an Indian-side clearance permitting the child to leave India for the receiving country. The NOC is the operational gate for the immigration formalities — the Foreign Regional Registration Office (FRRO), the passport authority issuing the child's Indian passport for travel, and the receiving-country embassy issuing the entry visa. The second document is the conformity certificate under Article 23 of the Hague Convention, 1993 — a certification by CARA, as the designated Central Authority of India under the Convention, that the adoption has been made in accordance with the Convention. The Article 23 certificate operates by treaty force in every other Contracting State to the Convention to recognise the adoption without further procedural hurdle. For receiving countries that are not parties to the Hague Convention — a diminishing class — the certificate operates as evidence of the regularity of the procedure but not as a treaty entitlement.

The post-NOC documentation cluster — passport, FRRO clearance, conformity certificate, embassy visa, and the medical and immunisation papers required by the receiving country's immigration regulations — is handled by the SAA in coordination with the Authorised Foreign Adoption Agency. The child travels to the receiving country with the adoptive parents under the legal regime of the receiving country, supplemented by the Indian court order and the conformity certificate.

Post-adoption follow-up — Regulation 25

Regulation 25 of the Adoption Regulations, 2022 maps the post-adoption follow-up onto the receiving-country agency. The Authorised Foreign Adoption Agency is required to submit quarterly progress reports for the first year and half-yearly reports for the second year — a total of six reports over twenty-four months — to CARA. The reports cover the child's physical and emotional well-being, schooling and social integration, the adoptive family's adjustment, and any concerns. The first set of obligations under Article 21 of the Hague Convention, 1993 sits at this stage — if the placement is not in the best interests of the child, the receiving-country Central Authority and CARA coordinate alternative care arrangements, with return to India as a last resort.

The acquisition of citizenship by the adopted child in the receiving country is a function of that country's nationality law. Most Hague-Convention receiving countries (United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden) confer citizenship by operation of law on a child adopted by their nationals abroad, subject to formalities. India does not lose the child's Indian citizenship by operation of the adoption; the child may, on attaining majority, opt for Overseas Citizenship of India under Section 7A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 if otherwise eligible. The interaction between Indian citizenship law and the receiving-country nationality law is to be worked out by the adoptive parents at the time of the citizenship registration in the receiving country.

The Laxmi Kant Pandey foundation — and what survived codification

The Supreme Court in Laxmi Kant Pandey v Union of India, AIR 1984 SC 469 wrote the procedural code in three judgments delivered between 1984 and 1991. The first judgment, delivered by Justice P N Bhagwati, set out the core procedural directions — the sponsoring agency in the receiving country must be licensed by the government of that country; the application is to be filed in the High Court (later, the district court) for the appointment of the foreigner as guardian under the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890; the home-study report, medical certificate, and the financial undertaking must accompany the application; no private adoption may be effected directly by any agency in India to a foreigner; the proceedings are confidential and the identity of the biological mother is to be protected. The second judgment in Laxmi Kant Pandey (II), AIR 1986 SC 272 introduced the Indian Council of Social Welfare (ICSW) as the scrutiny agency for inter-country adoption applications. The third judgment in Laxmi Kant Pandey (III), (1991) 4 SCC 33 worked out the maintenance-expense calibration and the conditions for the recognition of agencies.

Most of the Laxmi Kant Pandey code has been absorbed into Sections 59 to 65 of the JJ Act, 2015 and the Adoption Regulations, 2022. The Indian Council of Social Welfare scrutiny role has been replaced by CARA as the single Central Authority under the Hague Convention. The High Court forum has migrated to the district court (or Family Court) under Section 61. The Guardians and Wards Act, 1890 mechanism — appointment of the foreigner as guardian, with the adoption to be completed in the receiving country — has been replaced by direct adoption under Section 61 with the child becoming the legitimate child of the PAPs on the date of the Indian court order. The substantive principles — best interests of the child as the primary consideration, the prohibition on private adoptions, the requirement of receiving-country sponsorship, and the confidentiality of the proceedings — have all been carried forward.

Shabnam Hashmi — across community lines

The Supreme Court in Shabnam Hashmi v Union of India, (2014) 4 SCC 1 settled an open question that the codification process had not resolved on its own terms — whether the JJ Act adoption route was available to PAPs from communities whose personal law does not recognise adoption (Muslim, Christian, Parsi). The petitioner, a Muslim social worker who had brought up an orphan girl, sought a declaration that the JJ Act enabled her to formally adopt the child notwithstanding the absence of an adoption institution in Muslim personal law. The Supreme Court held that the JJ Act is a secular and enabling statute that operates across the personal-law spectrum; a Muslim, Christian, Parsi or non-religious applicant is entitled to invoke the JJ Act and to adopt thereunder; the personal-law restrictions do not foreclose the statutory entitlement. The Court declined to declare adoption a fundamental right under Article 21 — "the right to adopt is a statutory entitlement, not a constitutional one" — but affirmed that the entitlement, where conferred by statute, runs to all communities equally.

The Bombay High Court in Re: Adoption of Payal @ Sharinee Vinay Pathak, 2010 (1) Bom CR 434 — a Hindu-couple case in the intra-country domain — had already laid the doctrinal foundation by reading the JJ Act as a special and beneficent enactment that overrides the personal-law bar in Section 11(i)–(ii) of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956 where the child is orphaned, abandoned or surrendered. Shabnam Hashmi extended the logic across the religious spectrum. The combined effect for inter-country adoption is that an NRI or OCI applicant of any community — Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Parsi — is entitled to adopt under the JJ Act provided the child to be adopted is legally free for adoption.

Stephanie Joan Becker — single-parent inter-country adoption

The Supreme Court in Stephanie Joan Becker v State, (2013) 12 SCC 786 dealt with the application of a fifty-three-year-old unmarried American woman to adopt a ten-year-old Indian girl child. The application had been processed through the CARA pipeline and the SAA had recommended the adoption, but the CARA guidelines then in force imposed an age cap of forty-five years for a single applicant and stipulated a maximum age difference of forty-five years between the applicant and the child. The Supreme Court relaxed the age-cap guideline in the facts of the case — the applicant had been a foster mother to the child for several years, the child had bonded with her, and a strict application of the age-cap would have disrupted a settled placement contrary to the child's best interests. The judgment is now codified in the more flexible age criteria of Regulation 5 of the Adoption Regulations, 2022, which calibrates age to the age of the child. The substantive principle in Stephanie Joan Becker — that the procedural guidelines yield to the welfare of the child where the two are in conflict — survives as a constitutional directive under Article 21 even where the Regulations are tightly drawn.

The single-parent inter-country adoption route, after Stephanie Joan Becker, is now firmly established. Regulation 5(3) of the 2022 Regulations permits a single applicant — whether man or woman — to adopt, subject to the proviso that a single male is not eligible to adopt a girl child. The proviso preserves a paternalist concern that the Court has not yet directly addressed but that the Regulations have so far retained.

Anokha — and the question of foreign-domiciled parents of Indian origin

The Supreme Court in Anokha v State of Rajasthan, (2004) 1 SCC 382 clarified the procedural treatment of foreign-domiciled applicants of Indian origin. The Court held that the inter-country procedure under the then-extant 2003 CARA guidelines (now superseded by the 2022 Regulations) applied to foreign-domiciled OCI and PIO applicants notwithstanding their Indian ethnicity — the test is residence at the time of the adoption, not ethnicity or nationality of origin. The judgment forms the doctrinal basis for the OCI route under Section 60 of the JJ Act, 2015 and Regulation 17 of the Adoption Regulations, 2022 — which preserves a procedural preference for OCI applicants over foreign-national applicants but routes both through the same pipeline.

What remains open — Supriyo, single-male adoption, OCI eligibility

Three doctrinal questions in the inter-country adoption framework remain unsettled in 2026.

The first is the position of same-sex couples in inter-country adoption. The Supreme Court in Supriyo v Union of India, (2023) — the same-sex marriage equality reference — held by a four-to-one majority that the existing adoption framework under the JJ Act and the Adoption Regulations, 2022 does not, by reading-in, accommodate joint adoption by a same-sex couple. Regulation 5(3) — restricting joint adoption to a "stable marital relationship" — was upheld. The consequence in the inter-country domain is that a same-sex couple resident in a receiving country where their marriage is recognised cannot jointly apply under Section 59 of the JJ Act; only one partner may apply as a single applicant. The mismatch between the receiving-country recognition and the Indian-side restriction may, in time, produce litigation under Article 14 read with Article 21; the legislative position remains as the Supriyo majority left it.

The second is the proviso to Regulation 5(3) that bars a single male from adopting a girl child. The proviso is a paternalist guard against single-male custody of female children but produces an asymmetric effect that has not been directly tested under Article 14 or Article 15(1). A single male NRI or OCI applicant who wishes to adopt a girl child has no route under the present Regulations. Whether the restriction will survive an Article 15 challenge — assuming personal-law and quasi-personal-law statutes are no longer immune from Article 13 review after Shayara Bano v Union of India, (2017) 9 SCC 1 — is an open question.

The third concerns the citizenship and immigration interaction between Indian law and the law of the receiving country. The Citizenship Act, 1955 does not contain a tailored regime for the citizenship status of an Indian child adopted by a foreign national. The child travels on an Indian passport with the receiving-country adoption visa; the receiving-country nationality is acquired by operation of that country's adoption-citizenship rules; the Indian citizenship is technically retained until renunciation or operation of Section 9 of the 1955 Act. For dual-nationality regimes (where the receiving country permits dual citizenship), this produces no friction; for single-nationality regimes (United States, Germany, Japan in some scenarios), the renunciation of Indian citizenship occurs at the time of acquisition of the receiving-country nationality and the child later, on attaining majority, may apply for an OCI card under Section 7A of the Citizenship Act, 1955. The position is workable in practice but is not codified at the level of an Indian-side statute or regulation; it operates through receiving-country law and Ministry of External Affairs administrative practice.

When inter-country adoption is the right route — and when domestic CARA is

The choice between domestic CARA adoption and inter-country adoption is not a choice that the PAPs make at the registration stage — it is a function of the PAPs' residence at the time of application. An Indian-resident PAP, irrespective of nationality, registers on the domestic side of CARINGS and is matched with children placed for intra-country adoption under Section 58 of the JJ Act, 2015. An NRI, OCI or foreign-resident PAP registers on the inter-country side of CARINGS, after the sixty-day Indian-first preference window has expired in respect of any given child. A returning NRI or OCI who has shifted residence back to India before the registration may register as an Indian-resident applicant and avail of the intra-country pipeline, which has a faster matching cycle. Where the PAPs anticipate a return to India during the adoption process, they should seek guidance from CARA on the appropriate registration channel — re-registration on the domestic side after the home-study has been completed on the inter-country side requires a fresh home-study and a fresh seniority.

The two routes converge at the court order under Section 61 of the JJ Act, 2015 and on the substantive effect under Section 63 — the child becomes the legitimate child of the PAPs in either route. The procedural distinctions — the Authorised Foreign Adoption Agency sponsorship requirement, the NOC and conformity certificate requirement, the post-adoption follow-up obligations for two years, and the receiving-country immigration and citizenship coordination — apply only to the inter-country route. The HAMA route is not available in inter-country adoption — a foreign-resident Hindu PAP must use the JJ Act, since the giving-and-taking ceremony under Section 11(vi) of HAMA cannot be effected in respect of an orphaned, abandoned or surrendered child whose biological parents are not in a position to give the child in adoption, and the JJ Act preserves itself as the only operative route for that class of children.

Inter-country adoption from India in 2026 is, on every operational measure, a regulated and treaty-bound activity. The CARA pipeline has displaced the unregulated practice that Laxmi Kant Pandey sought to curb. The procedural discipline of the Adoption Regulations, 2022 and the bilateral discipline of the Hague Convention, 1993 supply the procedural rigour. The doctrinal points that remain — same-sex couple joint adoption, the single-male girl-child bar, the citizenship interaction with receiving-country law — are points of structural reform rather than procedural fragility. The framework works; the substantive direction of the framework is what continues to evolve.