MADURAI: Observing that the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890, is religion-neutral and it will apply to every person desirous of being appointed as a guardian of a minor, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has appointed a Hindu couple as the legal guardian of a minor girl belonging to Muslim community.
A bench of Justices N Anand Venkatesh and KK Ramakrishnan passed the verdict by setting aside an order passed by a Family Court in Madurai rejecting the couple’s application in September last year on the ground that the child was female and the couple were strangers to her.
The couple got married in 2012 and since they could not conceive, they decided to adopt a child. The child’s mother lived in their neighbourhood and has known them for more than 10 years. She is a daily wage worker and has two children and gave birth to the third child in December 2023.
Family court had rejected adoption plea of the couple
Since she struggled to provide financial support to all the three children, especially after her husband’s death, she gave her child to the couple for adoption. However, when the couple attempted to legalise the adoption and submitted application for guardianship, the Family Court rejected the application.
Hearing the appeal, the bench summoned the child’s biological mother, who appeared before the court and informed that right from birth, the child has been taken care of only by the couple and she wholeheartedly consented to appoint them as the guardian. In fact, the child was calling the couple as father and mother and addressed her (biological mother) as aunty, she added.
Satisfied that the couple was genuinely bringing up the child as their own child and the child is also recognising them as the parents and the biological mother has consented to the same, the judges observed that it would be in the welfare of the child to appoint the couple as her legal guardian and passed the above order.
