The Supreme Court of India, while monitoring the implementation of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, in October 2023 reviewed nationwide adoption statistics and identified severe systemic bottlenecks in the adoption process. The Bench of Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice J.B. Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Misra examined data presented by the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) revealing a significant mismatch between prospective adoptive parents and children legally available for adoption.
Background
The Court has been monitoring adoption reform through the long-running Temple of Healing v. Union of India writ proceedings. The statistics presented revealed a structural crisis: as of August 2023, approximately 33,967 prospective adoptive parents were registered with CARA, while only 2,118 children were legally free for adoption — a ratio of approximately 16:1. Between 2013 and 2023, annual adoptions ranged from 3,158 to 4,362, reflecting no meaningful increase despite India's vast population of vulnerable children.
A critical infrastructure gap was also identified: only 390 of 760 districts across India had functioning Specialised Adoption Agencies (SAAs), meaning nearly half the country's districts lacked the institutional capacity to process adoptions. This geographic gap particularly affects rural and tribal areas where abandoned and orphaned children are most likely to be found but least likely to enter the formal adoption system.
Key Provisions
The Court's directions addressed the systemic failures at multiple levels:
Bi-monthly identification drives: All State governments and Union Territory administrations were directed to conduct bi-monthly drives to identify children who are orphaned, abandoned, or surrendered, so that such children may enter the formal adoption pipeline.
District-level adoption agencies: All States and UTs were ordered to ensure the establishment of Specialised Adoption Agencies in every district by a stipulated deadline, closing the geographic gap in adoption infrastructure.
Data reporting: State nodal departments responsible for implementing the JJ Act were directed to furnish comprehensive data on adoption and foster care statistics to the Ministry of Women and Child Development for centralized monitoring.
Statutory timeline compliance: The Court emphasized the importance of adhering to timelines prescribed under the Adoption Regulations, 2022 for each stage of the adoption process — from child study reports to matching and pre-adoption foster care.
Inter-country adoption safeguards: While streamlining domestic adoption, the Court maintained existing safeguards for inter-country adoption, ensuring that the expedited process does not inadvertently divert children from domestic placement.
Implications for Practitioners
These directions have immediate practical consequences for family law practitioners handling adoption matters. The bi-monthly identification drives should expand the pool of children legally available for adoption, potentially reducing the wait times that currently frustrate prospective parents.
Practitioners advising prospective adoptive parents should monitor district-level SAA establishment, as the creation of new agencies in previously unserved districts will create new avenues for adoption applications. The geographic expansion may particularly benefit parents willing to adopt from rural or underserved regions.
Child welfare organisations and NGOs operating children's homes should prepare for increased engagement with State machinery during identification drives. The Court's directions effectively create a proactive duty on State governments to seek out adoptable children rather than passively waiting for institutional referrals.
For practitioners handling inter-country adoption cases, the Court's clear preservation of existing safeguards provides continuity, though the emphasis on domestic adoption priorities suggests that the regulatory preference for in-country placement will intensify.