- Can parents who offer their child for illegal abortion without following the due process of law be held responsible for violating the law?
- In case it is proved that the child was bought and sold by the biological and foster parents – who has a right of legal guardianship of the child.
- What should be the role of the state government upon learning about the sale of a child by one couple to another without following the due adoption process?
These are some of the most pertinent questions begging an answer.
Extreme poverty made 48-year-old Ranjit Tanti a poor tribal in western Tripura’s Khowai district to sell off his one-day-old son for a mere Rs.4,500. The expenses for bringing up the child were too much for him.
Tanti who made a living by selling firewood in the remote tribal-dominated Munda Basti, 125 km north of Agartala was extremely poor. He already had three children and could not bear the expense of another child. So he approached a local government doctor to abort the foetus inside his wife when she was three months pregnant.
That is when some neighbours advised him not to terminate the pregnancy and assured to find someone who could give a better life to the new born baby.
Accordingly a childless couple was found who gave an advance of Rs.1,000 to Tanti and his wife when she was eight-month pregnant.
Tanti in turn promised to give custody of the child to a childless couple from Madhabbari area of Mandai block in West Tripura district.
So when a son was born to him on June 2, he handed over the child to the childless couple the very next day in return for Rs.4,500.
It would have taken a different turn if it remained a personal affair between the two couple. But when it became a controversy the district authorities recovered the baby from the adoptive parents.
The childless couple was reluctant to return the baby. However at the same time their method of adoption by paying money to the biological parents was not legal.
The Tanti family already having three children is very poor and does not even have a proper house to live in. For them to raise the infant is not possible.
So who gets a right to bring up the child?
