The couple did the responsible thing, or thought they had: having raised the child since infancy under a notarised adoption deed, they went to the Child Welfare Committee to complete the formalities so he could be admitted to school. The Committee took the child into its custody instead. The High Court held this was beyond the Committee’s powers, because a child who is neither orphan nor abandoned, and against whose carers there is no allegation of harm, does not fall within its jurisdiction at all. It ordered the child returned, but told the couple to obtain a proper adoption declaration from a competent court, and set up welfare monitoring.
Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has directed a Child Welfare Committee to return the custody of a young child to the couple who had raised him since days after his birth, holding that the Committee had no jurisdiction to take custody of a child who is neither an orphan nor abandoned, and who does not fall within the category of a child in need of care and protection under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 [Aparna Das and Another v. State of West Bengal and Others].
Justice Krishna Rao allowed the writ petition to the extent of directing the child’s return, while requiring the petitioners to have their adoption declared by a competent court and putting in place quarterly monitoring of the child’s welfare.
The background
The child was born prematurely in February 2023 and, after a spell in a special new-born care unit, was discharged from hospital in March 2023. His biological parents, unable to care for him, handed him to the petitioners, and in April 2023 a notarised deed of adoption was executed between the biological parents and the petitioners. The child has been in the petitioners’ care and custody ever since.
When the petitioners sought a birth certificate to admit the child to school, the hospital directed them to approach the Child Welfare Committee. On doing so in February 2026 and narrating the history, the petitioners found that the Committee took the child into its own custody and did not return him, prompting the writ petition, which sought disclosure of the records relating to the child and, in substance, his restoration to the petitioners.
Counsel for the petitioners submitted that there was no allegation that the child had been abused, neglected, exploited, trafficked or harmed in their care, that they had approached the Committee bona fide to complete the formalities, and that an irregularity in the adoption process does not by itself establish that a child is unsafe or that removal from a settled caregiving environment is necessary.
The limits of the Committee’s jurisdiction
The Court examined the scheme of the 2015 Act and held that a Child Welfare Committee’s powers are confined to children in need of care and protection, as defined in Section 2(14) of the Act. On the admitted facts, the Court found, the child was neither an orphan nor abandoned, and did not fall within that category at all.
It followed, the Court held, that the Committee had no power to deal with the child, and that its action in taking custody from the petitioners was not in accordance with law:
“As the child is neither ‘orphan’ nor ‘abandoned’ and does not fall in the category of ‘children in need of care and protection’ in terms of Section 2(14) of the Act of 2015, the action of the Child Welfare Committee taking the custody of the child from the petitioners is not in accordance with law.”
The Court was equally clear about the limits of the petitioners’ own position. A notarised deed of adoption, it held, does not by itself entitle the petitioners to claim custody; under the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956, executing a notarised deed alone does not vest such a right. The result, in effect, was that neither the informal adoption nor the Committee’s intervention was on a sound legal footing, and the Court had to resolve the child’s position by reference to his welfare.
The best interest of the child
Turning to the general principles in Section 3 of the 2015 Act, the Court grounded its direction in several of them: the best interest of the child, the principle of family responsibility, the principle of safety, positive measures, and the principles of institutionalisation as a last resort and of repatriation and restoration. Applying these, and noting that the child had spent his whole life with the petitioners and recognised them as his parents, the Court held that returning him to them served his best interest.
It directed the Child Welfare Committee to hand over custody of the child to the petitioners by a fixed date. As a measure of caution and for the child’s best interest, it directed the Member Secretary of the District Legal Services Committee, South 24 Parganas, to obtain quarterly reports on the child’s welfare and progress from the petitioners, beginning December 2026, with liberty to depute a child welfare expert to inspect the home where the child lives.
Finally, because the adoption had not followed proper procedure, the Court directed the petitioners to take appropriate steps before a competent court for a declaration that they are the adoptive parents and the child their adopted child.
Why it matters
The judgment draws a careful line around the powers of Child Welfare Committees, which are the front-line child-protection bodies under the juvenile justice framework. Their jurisdiction is triggered by a child being in need of care and protection, an abandoned, orphaned, abused or endangered child; it is not a general licence to take custody of any child whose paperwork is irregular. A privately arranged adoption that skipped the statutory process is a legal problem to be cured, but it does not, without more, convert a loved and well-kept child into one in need of protection from his carers. That distinction is the core of the ruling.
At the same time, the Court did not endorse the shortcut the couple took. It held plainly that a notarised adoption deed confers no automatic right of custody and that the proper course is a declaration from a competent court, which the petitioners have now been directed to obtain. The judgment thus corrects an error on both sides: the Committee overstepped by seizing a child it had no jurisdiction over, and the couple must still regularise, through the proper forum, an adoption they had treated as complete on a notarised document alone.
What holds the two together is the welfare of the child, which the Act makes the paramount consideration and which the Court placed at the centre. Uprooting a child from the only family he has known since birth, absent any allegation of harm, would serve no protective purpose and would itself be contrary to the principles of family responsibility, of restoration and of institutionalisation only as a last resort. By returning the child while building in independent, periodic oversight of his welfare and requiring the adoption to be properly declared, the Court sought to protect the child’s settled life and his legal security at once. The order is a reminder that in matters concerning children, form matters, but never at the cost of the child’s best interest.
Case Title: Aparna Das and Another v. State of West Bengal and Others [W.P.A. No. 13525 of 2026]
Bench: Justice Krishna Rao, High Court at Calcutta (Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction, Appellate Side)
Hearing Concluded: September 7, 2026 | Judgment Delivered: September 17, 2026
Status: Writ petition disposed of. Child Welfare Committee directed to return custody to the petitioners; petitioners directed to seek a declaration of adoption from a competent court; quarterly welfare monitoring ordered.