New Delhi: The Minister of Women and Child Development, Smt Maneka Sanjay Gandhi has directed state governments to ensure that all the child care institutions should be registered and linked to CARA within the next one month.
Taking cognizance of the recent cases of illegal adoptions carried out by Missionaries of Charity in Jharkhand, Smt. Maneka Sanjay Gandhi has instructed the states to get child care homes run by Missionaries of Charity all over the country inspected immediately.
The mandatory registration of CCIs and linking to Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) has been provided in Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 which came into force more than two years ago but some orphanages had challenged the validity of this clause. The Supreme Court has since dismissed the petitions and has upheld the validity, vide their order of December, 2017. Since then, approximately 2300 child care institutions have been linked to CARA and about 4000 are still pending for linkage. Minister has also expressed displeasure that even the 2300 institutions that have been linked to CARA, the children available in these institutions have still not been brought into on the adoption system. The Minister is expected to take this issue very strongly in the meeting of the WCD Ministers of States scheduled to be held on 17.7.2018.
