In a unique legal battle, a divorced woman who remarried has approached the Supreme Court on Friday to adopt her son, born from her previous marriage, without the biological father’s consent, which is typically required under the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act (HAMA).
Advocate Vanshaja Shukla, representing petitioner Divya Jyoti Singh, presented her case before a bench comprising Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra. The court issued a notice to her former husband.
Singh, also an advocate, married her first husband in November 2013. She claimed that he abandoned her in September 2015 when she was in an advanced stage of pregnancy and eloped with her brother’s wife. Singh recounted that she, along with her parents and brother, discovered her then-husband and sister-in-law in a hotel in 2016.
Her former husband and sister-in-law began living together with the latter’s four-year-old daughter. Singh alleged that her ex-husband never visited her after their son was born in October 2015. Following cross-complaints by both parties, a family court granted them a mutual consent divorce in September 2016. In 2018, her ex-husband married her sister-in-law, and they now have a four-year-old child.
Singh remarried in 2020, and her new husband and family accepted her child. Advocate Shukla emphasized that Singh’s decision to remarry, despite immense stress and agony, was motivated by her desire to provide her child with a stable upbringing.
Citing continuous harassment from her former husband, Singh sought the court’s permission to adopt her son along with his stepfather, bypassing the requirement under Section 9(2) of HAMA, which mandates the biological father’s consent for adoption.
The CJI-led bench remarked, “When HAMA mandates the consent of the biological father, how do we compel him to give up custody even when the mother has guardianship of the child? However challenging the case may be, we will issue a notice.” The bench directed the jurisdictional station house officer of Delhi Police to serve the notice to Singh’s former husband and asked him to respond within two weeks.
