Victims of Preet Mandir’s depravity: 41 children waiting to be adopted

Over the past five months, the adoption process of nearly 41 children, including some differently-abled in the 1-12 age group, has been affected adversely at Pune’s adoption centre Preet Mandir. The process includes 10 special children (hearing and speech impaired) and two others who tested positive in their first HIV test, but were negative in the second.  

The arrest of JS Bhasin, managing trustee of Balwant Kartar Anand Foundation which runs Preet Mandir, on Tuesday has further complicated matters for the children and their prospective adoptive parents.

The Central Adoption Resource Authority (Cara), the government’s apex body for adoption issues, had revoked Preet Mandir’s licence for inter-country adoption on March 11. In June, its in-country adoption licence too was revoked.

Of the total 41 cases in process, 17 forwarded to Cara for no objection certificate (NOC) are pending. Ten other proposals, wherein the parent-child match had been completed, have also not been cleared by Cara. Preet Mandir had sent these ten proposals before March 11, and thus urged Cara to take prompt action. 

Earlier, Cara had granted NOC to seven cases but these have been pending in the court for further formalities. These cases are likely to be cleared as they are in the last stage of the adoption process, Preet Mandir sources said.  

While in seven cases the prospective adoptive parents are Indians, in 34 cases they are foreign nationals who communicate via the internet, receive details about the child and pursue the initial process of parent-child match.  

In the seven in-country adoptions, the parent-child matches were done but the submission of documents was in the process when the licence was revoked. 

Meanwhile, district women and child development officer PB Shirke and district child welfare committee (CWC) members visited the two units of Preet Mandir in Kalyaninagar and Camp on Wednesday to review the state of the children awaiting adoption. 

A total of 133 children are ldoged at the adoption agency — 30 at the Camp unit and 103 at Kalyaninagar.  The officials made the visit on the directives of joint commissioner of women and child development VD Marathe. Marathe has asked for a report of the visit. 

Following the visit, Shirke told DNA that the children were well-provided for. There were no directives for the transfer of the children as the matter was subjudice, he said. 

The CWC had prepared the transfer orders of 75 children from the Kalyaninagar centre in June but the process was halted following a stay order from the Bombay high court. 

The CBI investigating the alleged irregularities in adoption cases in Preet Mandir.