TNN | Apr 20, 2012, 03.57 AM IST

NEW DELHI: The Child Welfare Committee has drawn flak from a trial court, which has asked it to explain why the committee has given away in adoption a girl child — born to a rape victim — which was given to it for safekeeping, without her biological parents' consent.

Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau sought the CWC's explanation as it came to know that the child, whose father faced trial in her court for raping her mother and was convicted by it, was given away in adoption by the CWC without informing anyone.

ASJ Lau came to know that the child had been given in adoption, when she was adjudicating the rape convict's plea for custody of his child born out of his illicit relation with his minor victim. Accused had sought the custody of his child as her unwed mother, now 19, did not want to keep her with herself.

"It surprises me that while the trial of the criminal case against the biological father of the child was still pending, how could she be put up for adoption and that too without the consent of the biological parents? I note that during the trial, the accused being the biological father who was in judicial custody, had also sought the custody of the child," the judge said.

ASJ Lau directed the CWC to place before it a detailed report regarding the present status of the child and also the record of the proceedings regarding her adoption. The court also noted that at the time of giving away the child in adoption, the CWC had not apprised the district judge, who allowed the adoption, about the background of the minor and suppressed the fact that her parents were alive.

The court has sent its order for compliance to Delhi government's principal secretary (Social Welfare), director of Women and Child Development and deputy commissioner of police of northwest Delhi.

Accused was convicted for raping a 14-year-old girl after purchasing her for Rs 20,000 from someone in 2007 and confining her at his house for over three years during which he subjected her to slavery, torture and rape, leading to the girl child's birth.

During trial, accused had made a formal plea for the custody of his daughter as her biological mother was not willing to accept her, while the court had given the girl to CWC to take care of her. On the day of his sentencing, ASJ Lau came to know that the child had been given in adoption to a couple outside Delhi after considering her as abandoned.

Accused had approached the court for his child's custody saying he does not want to lose his daughter and she should not be kept in the orphanage.

He had pleaded that in his absence, the child should spend her childhood with her grandparents. The court, however, at that time had dismissed his plea saying he was facing charges of subjecting a minor to unnatural lust and sexually exploiting her.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Trial-on-rape-victims-child-adopted-Court-seeks-report/articleshow/12739770.cms?