The mother of the kid now seeks action from the chief minister against those who illegally pushed the adoption of her son.
Anupama with her partner Ajith Kumar. (K A Shaji/south First)
The illegalities surrounding a scandalous adoption issue that shook Kerala nearly two years ago have returned to haunt the state’s ruling CPI(M), which typically takes pride in its progressive credentials as well as its ability to challenge orthodoxy.
The series of incidents began three years ago when a local leader of the party in the state’s capital Thiruvananthapuram objected to the decision of his 22-year-old daughter to brave social stigma and have a child out of wedlock with her already-married boyfriend.
The party-controlled Kerala State Council for Child Welfare (KSCCW) and Child Welfare Committee (CWC) of the Thiruvananthapuram district appeared to have violated all rules related to adoption by aligning with the leader, who forcibly took away his daughter’s three-day-old baby.
The agencies gave the baby to a childless couple from Andhra Pradesh without the knowledge or consent of the biological mother, and it led to a large-scale sensation across the state. The handing-over was hurried and clandestine.
The mother got the child back after a year full of civil society-backed agitations and a protracted legal battle.
Anupama S Chandran, the biological mother, married her partner B Ajith Kumar later, after he exited his earlier broken marriage through divorce. Now, they live together, looking after the kid named Eden.
Almost two years have passed since the mother was reunited with her infant. Now, the allegation is that the Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF government is protecting all those involved in the sordid adoption row, which allegedly made a mockery of all applicable rules.
Giving a new dimension to the issue, Anupama reached the valedictory function of the month-long Nava Kerala Sadas programme of Vijayan and his Cabinet at Vattiyoorkavu near Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday, 23 December.
She wanted a meeting with the chief minister, demanding promised action against all those who conspired to facilitate the illegal adoption, including her father PS Jayachandran, KSCCW general secretary and CPI(M) leader Dr M Shiju Khan, and CWC chairperson N Sunanda, who is also a party leader.
Though she was not permitted to meet the chief minister, Anupama was allowed to give a petition in writing to officials outside the venue.
Talking to South First later, Anupama said the representation was just the beginning, and that she would take the legal route if the government refused to ensure justice.
“Two years ago, I approached the party and its government seeking the return of my child. Rather than helping me get legal assistance to reclaim the child, the party took an unusual approach. My party membership was cancelled, on the claim that I had not paid the fixed levy for a long time,” she said.
“It is sad that the police and the government have not responded to any of my petitions in the last two years against those who carried out the illegal adoption and participated in related conspiracies. This is happening against the assurances given by Health Minister Veena George, who mediated to end my protest two years ago, when I was seeking my child back and demanding action against those who conspired against me,” she said.
Though the government had earlier admitted to lapses on the part of the CWC and the KSCCW in the adoption procedures of Anupama’s baby, it is now silent on the whole issue.
According to Ajith, who accompanied Anupama to Vattiyoorkavu, the ugly stains of the willful violations of adoption rules were all over those who committed them, and the government was now all out to protect them because of their affiliations to the ruling party.
In the beginning, the agencies claimed that the child was found “abandoned” in the “Ammathottil” — the electronic cradle of KSCCW where any infant can be placed anonymously.
Jayachandran, Anupama’s father and the child’s grandfather, is a local CPI(M) heavyweight. He claimed he had placed the child in the cradle, rung the bell at the KSCCW office, and saw from a distance that the KSCCW staff taking away the child.
It later came to light that the cradle was not functioning on the day the child was said to be placed in the Ammathottil — 23 October, 2020.
Jayachandran soon revised his version and said he directly handed over the child to the authorities.
As per information leaked later, the child was taken to the Women and Child Hospital at Thycaud before being handed over to the KSCCW.
There, the infant’s gender was recorded wrongly as “girl” and the baby was even named Malala Yusuf. When this gender mix-up courted controversy, the agencies corrected it promptly.
Heightening the suspicion that the wrong gender was not accidental, the father’s name was also wrongly entered in the hospital’s books.
As per the statements by Veena George in the assembly, neither the CWC nor the KSCCW violated the rules.
However, Anupama pointed to problems with the advertisements about the child found “abandoned” placed in newspapers as per mandatory adoption regulations before the infant was handed over to the Andhra Pradesh couple.
Yes, the newspaper advertisements were placed to alert the biological parents to make sure that the child was not illegally separated from them.
Also, contrary to the claims made by the government later, Ajith had indeed gone to the council searching for their child within 30 days of the advertisement’s publication.
However, he was shown a boy and DNA tests were conducted. It did not match. One thing, therefore, was clear: The council knew that Anupama was looking for her child in 2020.
It was in April 2021 that Anupama filed a complaint with the police accusing her parents of taking her child away from her.
“The fundamental thrust of the Adoption Regulations of 2017 is that a child should be given for adoption only if all options to keep it with the biological parents are exhausted,” said J Sandhya, a human rights lawyer with long experience in child-related cases.
In case a child is “abandoned”, as the government claims Anupama’s baby was, government agencies must take some measures before declaring it “legally free for adoption”.
Placing details of the child — including its photograph — in prominent dailies is one. This was done but in a misleading way, as the “abandoned” child was described as a girl.
Another stipulation in the adoption regulations was that the police should be given the details of the child and asked to trace the biological parents.
In this case, the local police were informed of the “abandoned” child. Tracing the parents should not have been trouble as Anupama had gone to the police in person, asking for her missing child long before adoption procedures began.
Still, the police and the adoption agencies behaved as if the mother did not exist.
Thus, there was no way the government could claim to have upheld the spirit of the Adoption Regulations of 2017.
The essence of the regulations is to go the extra mile in search of the biological parent and persuade them to keep the child.
But the state government authorities, though they had the mother who was desperate to get her child back right before their eyes, hastily arranged for the child to be placed for adoption.
According to the rules, “The Specialised Adoption Agency (the KSCCW in this case) or the Child Welfare Committee shall make efforts to explore the possibility of parents retaining the child, which shall include
counselling or linking them to the counselling centre set up at the authority or State Adoption Resource Agency, encouraging them to retain the child.”
In Anupama’s case, the opposite was done.
There is also a reason why the government claims that the child was “abandoned” and not “surrendered”. If the government said the child was “surrendered”, the grandfather — who went on to state that he had publicly given up his daughter’s child — would have been in deep trouble. Only the biological parent may surrender a child.
If anyone else, like the grandfather, did it without the presence of the biological mother, he could be imprisoned for up to three years under Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice Act (Care and Protection of Children) Act.
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