Union Minister Maneka Gandhi (TOI file photo)

NEW DELHI: Taking cognisance of recent cases of alleged illegal adoptions carried out by missionaries in Jharkhand, Union Minister Maneka Gandhi on Monday directed state governments to ensure that all child care institutions get registered and linked to the country's apex adoption body, CARA , within a month.

The mandatory registration of CCIs and linking to the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) has been provided in the Juvenile Justice ( Care and Protection of Children ) Act, 2015 which came into force more than two years ago, but some orphanages had challenged the validity of this clause, a Women and Child Development Ministry official said.

"The child care institutions should have been linked long back. The deadline for registering all CCIs was December 1, 2017 and it is something that needs to be urgently done," said Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) CEO Lt Col (retd) Deepak Kumar, adding that the children in these institutions should be brought into the adoption system.

Taking cognisance of the recent cases of alleged illegal adoptions carried out by missionaries in Jharkhand, Gandhi directed the state governments to ensure that all child care institutions get registered and linked to CARA within a month.

A shelter home in Jharkhand run by the Mother Teresa-founded Missionaries of Charity has been reportedly involved in selling three children for money and giving away a fourth child.

Approximately 2,300 child care institutions since December last year have been linked to CARA, but about 4,000 are still pending for linkage.

Gandhi has expressed displeasure that even the 2,300 institutions that have been linked to the CARA, the children available in these institutions have still not been brought into on the adoption system.

According to National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, there are 2,32,937 children in all the CCIs - registered and the unregistered ones - in the country.

