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Slave Purchase Blocked

September 7, 2009 permalink

An Indian court has blocked Wisconsin couple Craig and Cynthia Coates from adopting a nine-year-old mentally challenged boy. The court thought the boy was sought as domestic help.

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Rejecting US couple’s adoption bid, High Court says their ‘real intention’ is to use child as help

Krishnadas Rajagopal, Posted: Tuesday , Sep 01, 2009 at 0505 hrs New Delhi:

Why should American citizens Craig and Cynthia Coates fight a long legal battle to adopt Anil, a nine-year-old mentally-challenged orphan?

The Delhi High Court on Monday said the “real intention” of the couple was to use the boy as a “domestic help”. Justice V B Gupta said it was difficult to believe that the Coateses, both of whom are 50 years old and already have three children of their own, would want to adopt a fourth child.

The government had cleared the boy’s adoption by the Coateses. However, the Delhi District Judge rejected their adoption petition, and the couple went to the High Court in appeal.

Craig Coates suffers from cerebral palsy and works as a transaction processor with a US bank, earning $ 8.29 per hour, as per court records. Cynthia, a qualified nurse, has an annual income of $43,680. They live in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

“As is apparent, the appellants (the Coateses) are already blessed with three children, two males and one female child. Both of them are 50 years old, therefore, the need for them to expand their family further at this stage does not sound very convincing. Cynthia is a nurse and is already taking care of her husband, who is disabled, and is also managing her career,” Justice Gupta said.

The judge fined the Coateses Rs 20,000, saying their appeal was “nothing but an abuse of the process of law”.

“Such frivolous and a bogus appeals deserve to be dismissed with heavy costs, so that precious time of the trial court as well as the appellate courts are not wasted,” Justice Gupta observed. He agreed with the “sound legal principles” shown by the lower court in questioning why “foreign nationals” would be so keen to adopt an “Indian male child” when they have “already got a male child”.

“The real intention of the Coateses in adoping the child who is suffering from mental delays is to exploit him as a domestic help for Craig Coates, since Cynthis Coates is gainfully employed as a nurse while Craig has been suffering from cerebral palsy since birth,” the court said.

Anil was found abandoned by policemen from the Okhla police station and handed over to Welfare Home for Children, a registered society recognised by the Ministry of Social Justice, on January 20, 2006. A medical examination fixed his date of birth as October 19, 1999.

Subsequently, the boy was declared “abandoned” and was certified as legally free for adoption by the Child Welfare Committee. The Co-ordinating Voulntary Adoption Resource Agency (CVARA) and the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) cleared the child for inter-country adoption. The government, acting through the Indian Council for Child Welfare, filed a ‘no objection’ certificate when the case came up before the Delhi District Judge.

The Coateses submitted that “the minor child has been rejected by Indian families as he suffers from mental delays and needs special care which Cynthia could provide as she is a qualified nurse and has been taking care of her husband”.

The Welfare Home, backing the couple’s adoption bid, told the court, “In case this appeal (to the High Court) is not allowed, the child will be deprived of warmth of family and forced to spend his life up to 18 years in an orphanage without proper education, upbringing and family environment.”

Source: Indian Express

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