In Brief
Kuljeet Kaur Mahal and her husband, adoptive parents of a minor girl under the Juvenile Justice Act 2015, sought to modify an adoption order that imposed a condition requiring them to bring the child to India annually to meet her biological father and grandfather. The US Embassy rejected the adoption order due to this condition. The High Court held that the 2015 Act does not authorize courts to impose such conditions on adoption orders. Once adopted, the child becomes the lawful child of the adoptive parents with all ties to the biological family severed. The statutory framework provides for post-adoption monitoring through separate regulatory procedures, making court-imposed periodic contact conditions unnecessary and legally unsupported. The condition was accordingly quashed.
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