A Canada-based couple turned to India when they wanted to adopt a girl child. In 2007, they filed an application to adopt an eight-year-old girl from their extended family in Punjab, but archaic rules meant that the couple could gain custody after nine years and a protracted battle in the Delhi High Court.

The verdict summed up the ordeal parents and children face due to lengthy procedures.

“The popular belief is that adopting one child will not change the world, but for that child, the world will change,” the court said in its judgment delivered on July 18. The girl, now 17, will soon be able to live with her new parents in Canada.

The legal trouble may have ended, but hoping that others don’t go through the same ordeal, Justice Manmohan directed the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) to streamline and simplify the adoption procedure. The court asked CARA to ensure that the applications are for approval or No Objection Certificates be passed in a child-friendly manner in a strict time frame.

“Delay in adoption means that the minor has to live with uncertainty and insecurity. (Hollywood actor) Hugh Jackman rightly observed that adoption is a blessing all round when its done right,” the judge said. The court took note of the fact that domestic adoptions dropped by half, hitting a five-year low with only 3,011 children being adopted by Indian parents in 2015-16. During the same period, only 666 children were adopted by foreign parents.

For a country having a population of approximately 1.3 billion, statistics reveal an abysmal rate of adoption.

The child’s parents had approached the High Court in 2015 when they did not hear anything from the CARA since 2011 for allowing her daughter to be taken to Canada. The petitioners stated that even after nine years of adoption, the CARA has not issued an NoC.