Bombay High Court Directs CARA to Issue NOC for HAMA Adoption Where Adoptive Parents Are Australian Citizens
The Bombay High Court has ordered CARA to issue a No Objection Certificate for a Hindu adoption of a relative's child, rejecting the authority's refusal on inter-country adoption grounds and holding Articles 5 and 17 of the Hague Convention inapplicable to an expatriate adoption.
A Division Bench of the Bombay High Court, comprising Justice Ravindra V. Ghuge and Justice Abhay J. Mantri, disposed of a writ petition on 30 March 2026 filed by an Australian citizen couple and their adopted infant daughter, directing the Central Adoption Regulatory Authority (CARA) to issue a No Objection Certificate once the District Magistrate completes a verification inquiry. The couple had adopted a two-year-old girl — the newborn child of a close relative — under the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956 (HAMA), only to find themselves trapped between Australian immigration rules that treat the adoption as an “expatriate adoption” outside the Hague Convention process, and CARA's insistence that it lacked jurisdiction or that prior foreign-authority permission was a mandatory precondition. The Court rejected both positions and charted a path through Regulations 69 and 70 of the Adoption Regulations, 2022.
The Dispute Before the Court
Petitioner No. 1, Mangesh Bhaskarrao Manwatkar, became an Australian citizen on 27 February 2023 and holds Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) status. He and his wife, Petitioner No. 2 Pushpa Bhivsan Vanere, married on 1 March 2017 at Navi Mumbai and were childless. Both profess the Hindu religion and are governed by HAMA. They decided to adopt the third child of a close relative, Sudhir Yashvant Shekokar and Yashoda Sudhir Shekokar, who already had a sixteen-year-old son and an eleven-year-old daughter; the third pregnancy was described as unplanned.
The biological child was born on 28 February 2023. When the child was forty-five days old, a Joint Adoption Deed was entered into on 21 April 2023 and registered the same day with the Joint Sub-Registrar, Thane. The adoption ceremony was conducted according to Hindu religious rites, witnessed by close relatives and a Hindu priest who signed both the English and Marathi ceremony documents. The adopted daughter's name was changed; her Indian passport reflects the adoptive father's name as her middle name and surname, and details of the adoptive mother also appear in it.
The adoptive mother subsequently became an Australian citizen as well. She remained in India for approximately three years, solely to care for the adopted child, while the child's Australian visa pathway remained unresolved. After approaching Australian immigration authorities and being referred to the Subclass 102 Adoption Visa, the couple turned to CARA. The District Child Protection Officer, Thane, had already submitted a report recommending the family for relative adoption, finding them socially, economically and medically fit.
CARA's Refusal and the Procedural Dead Ends
CARA took two successive positions. First, in an affidavit filed on 15 December 2025, it contended that Section 56(3) of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 carves out HAMA adoptions entirely, leaving CARA with no role or jurisdiction. Second, when that argument could not be sustained in light of Chapter VIII of the Adoption Regulations, 2022 — which expressly covers inter-country HAMA adoptions — CARA's officer G. Ravi Kumar wrote to the petitioners on 21 August 2025 that Section 68 of the Adoption Regulations, 2022 applied because the adoptive father is an Australian citizen with OCI status, making this an inter-country HAMA adoption. CARA's position was that without prior documentation from an Australian authority under Articles 5 or 17 of the Hague Convention, it could not issue an NOC.
The Australian side, however, was equally categorical. An email dated 28 April 2025 from Inter-Country Adoption Australia stated that this case is an “expatriate adoption” that falls entirely outside Australia's regulated inter-country adoption process. Australian embassies, the communication confirmed, cannot witness documents for domestic or private adoptions in other countries, and the Australian Government does not issue any document endorsing such adoptions. The relevant visa pathway identified was the Subclass 102 Adoption Visa.
Before approaching the Bombay High Court in Writ Petition No. 16232 of 2025, the adoptive mother had pursued a mistaken procedural route, filing Miscellaneous Petition (Adoption) No. 354 of 2024 before the Additional Sessions Judge-3, Thane. That application, presented on 29 November 2024, was disposed of on 20 February 2025 simply as “filed”. On similarly improper advice, the petitioners then filed Civil Revision Application No. 351 of 2025 before a learned Single Judge of this Court, which was disposed of on 6 August 2025 with leave to withdraw and liberty to file a substantive suit.
The Statutory Framework and the Competing Regulations
The Court examined several provisions in detail. Section 56(3) of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 exempts HAMA adoptions from that Act's general adoption framework. Section 56(4) mandates that all inter-country adoptions be done only as per that Act and the adoption regulations framed by CARA. Section 59 sets out the procedure for inter-country adoption of orphan, abandoned, or surrendered children. Section 60 prescribes the procedure for inter-country relative adoption, and is the provision ultimately invoked by the Supreme Court in Prema Gopal v. Central Adoption Resource Authority.
Within the Adoption Regulations, 2022, three regulations were directly in play. Regulation 67 covers cases where the adoption deed was already executed under HAMA before the Adoption (Amendment) Regulations, 2021 came into force. Regulation 68 prescribes the standard common procedure for all inter-country adoptions initiated after 17 September 2021 by eligible NRIs or OCI cardholders. Regulation 69 prescribes the adoption process where parties to an adoption already concluded under HAMA present the deed to the Sub-Registrar, with the District Magistrate then conducting an inquiry within thirty days.
Petitioner's counsel, Senior Advocate Mr. Anil V. Anturkar, argued that the word “necessary” in Regulation 70(1) — which conditions the NOC on “necessary permission under Article 5 or Article 17” — cannot be read as demanding such permission as an inflexible precondition in every case. He further argued that Articles 5 and 17 of the Hague Convention are directed at prospective adoptive parents and a proposed adoption still to be effected, not a completed HAMA adoption. Since Australia itself does not treat this as a Hague Convention inter-country adoption, the Convention's prior-permission machinery is simply not triggered.
How the Bench Reasoned
The Division Bench worked through each regulation methodically. It held that Regulation 67 does not apply because that regulation is confined to adoption deeds executed before the 2021 Amendment Regulations came into force; the deed here was executed on 21 April 2023, well after that date.
Regulation 68, the Court accepted, would ordinarily apply because the adoption was initiated after 17 September 2021 and involves an OCI cardholder. However, the bench declined to enforce the procedure under sub-clauses (2) to (6) of Regulation 68 in the peculiar facts before it. The adoption had legally taken place under HAMA from a close relative, the child was a toddler who had been with the adoptive mother for years, and simply reversing these events because prior procedure was not followed would harm the child without any corresponding legal necessity. The Court was categorical that the adoption itself discloses no illegality.
On Articles 5 and 17 of the Hague Convention, the bench accepted the petitioners' reading. Since Australia had expressly stated that this is not a Hague Convention inter-country adoption but an expatriate adoption, requiring prior Australian authority permission under those Articles would be circular and pointless. Regulation 70's reference to “necessary” permission must be read contextually; in a case where the receiving country itself disavows the Hague process, Articles 5 and 17 have no operative field.
The Court placed significant reliance on the Supreme Court's orders in Prema Gopal v. Central Adoption Resource Authority & Ors., Special Leave to Appeal (Civil) No. 14886 of 2024. There, the Supreme Court had held on 24 March 2025 that Section 60(2) of the Juvenile Justice Act does not envisage any NOC to be issued by the receiving country. The authority is required, on receiving the District Magistrate's or Collector's order and an application from the parents, to issue the NOC only under intimation to the immigration authorities of India and the receiving country. The Bombay High Court also drew on the Delhi High Court's judgment in Jasleen Iqbal Sidhu & Ors. v. Union of India through Principal Secretary & Ors., Writ Petition (C) No. 3880 of 2025, which involved a structurally similar fact pattern — an Australian-citizen Sikh couple who adopted from a relative in India under HAMA — where the Delhi High Court directed CARA to issue the requisite NOC.
The Karnataka High Court's judgment in U. Ajay Kumar and Another v. Union of India, AIR 2024 Kar 93, was also placed before the bench by CARA's counsel, but the Bombay Division Bench distinguished it on facts, finding the peculiar circumstances here — particularly Australia's explicit characterisation of the adoption as expatriate and not inter-country — decisive.
Addressing Regulation 69 specifically, the bench held that its language covers parties to an adoption already concluded under HAMA without restricting applicability to resident adoptive parents, and that it applied here given the peculiar facts, even though Regulation 68 would have been the strictly applicable regulation. The Court made clear that Regulation 68 continues to apply independently to cases not covered by Regulation 67 and not sharing these peculiar features.
On the human dimension, the bench observed that the adoptive mother had been living in India for approximately three years solely to care for the adopted child, despite herself being an Australian citizen. The girl had been with the adoptive family since she was forty-five days old. Refusing to issue the NOC on technical grounds would cause the adoption to fail.
Directions Issued
The Court directed as follows:
Since Regulation 69(1) — presentation of the adoption deed to the Sub-Registrar — had already been complied with, the adoptive couple must approach the District Magistrate, who is to conduct an inquiry under Regulation 69(2) to satisfy itself that all provisions of HAMA have been followed. That inquiry must be completed within thirty days. The bench expressed that it would not appreciate any extension of time being sought under clause (3) of Regulation 69, given the time already lost.
Upon receipt of the District Magistrate's verification certificate on the registered Adoption Deed, CARA is directed to issue the NOC within fifteen days, under intimation to the Immigration Authority of India and the Immigration Authority of Australia. Articles 5 and 17 of the Hague Convention are not to be applied as preconditions in this case.
Outcome
Writ Petition No. 16232 of 2025 was disposed of with the directions set out above. Rule was discharged. The judgment was pronounced on 30 March 2026, reserved on 12 March 2026, and authored by Justice Ravindra V. Ghuge for the Division Bench.