Any female Hindu (including Buddhist, Jaina or Sikh by religion)  who is not married, or if married, whose husband is not alive or her marriage has been dissolved or her husband has been declared incompetent by the court has the capacity to take a son or daughter in adoption”.

2) 

1. 
   Where there is an adoption of a son by a female than the adoptive mother should be at least twenty-one years older than the child”.   
   

3) 

• 
  Under The Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956 the party willing for adoption can make application to Child Welfare Agency. Registration can be done either an Adoption Coordinating Agency (ACA) found in each state’s capital city, or an agency certified by the Central Adoption Resource Authority(CARA) in New Delhi.
  
• After this, the agency conducts a preliminary interview with the adopting couple in order to understand their intention and motivation behind adoption.

The law in India states as follows: Eligibility criteria for prospective adoptive parents The prospective adoptive parents shall be physically, mentally and emotionally stable, financially capable and shall not have any life threatening medical condition. Any prospective adoptive parents, irrespective of his marital status and whether or not he has biological son or daughter, can adopt a child subject to following, namely:- the consent of both the spouses for the adoption shall be required, in case of a married couple; a single female can adopt a child of any gender; a single male shall not be eligible to adopt a girl child; No child shall be given in adoption to a couple unless they have at least two years of stable marital relationship. The age of prospective adoptive parents, as on the date of registration, shall be counted for deciding the eligibility and the eligibility of prospective adoptive parents to apply for children of different age groups shall be as under:- Age of the child 1. Maximum composite age of prospective adoptive parents (couple) 2. Maximum age of single prospective adoptive parent Child age Upto 4 years 90 years(1.) 45 years(2.) Child age Above 4 and upto 8 years 100 years(1.) 50 years(2.) Child age Above 8 and upto 18 years 110 years(1.) 55 years(2.) In case of couple, the composite age of the prospective adoptive parents shall be counted. The minimum age difference between the child and either of the prospective adoptive parents shall not be less than twenty-five years. The age criteria for prospective adoptive parents shall not be applicable in case of relative adoptions and adoption by step-parent. Couples with three or more children shall not be considered for adoption except in case of special need children as defined in sub-regulation (21) of regulation 2, hard to place children as mentioned in regulation 50 and in case of relative adoption and adoption by step-parent.

Eligibility of a Female Hindu to Take in adoption

The eligibility criteria for female Hindu to take a son or daughter in adoption are given here:

• The female Hindu should be of sound mind
• The female Hindu should not a minor
• The female Hindu who is not married can adopt a child
• In case of a married female, whose marriage has been dissolved whose husband is dead or has completely renounced the world or has ceased to be a Hindu or has been declared by a court of competent jurisdiction to be of unsound mind,

Conditions for a Valid Adoption

In every adoption under Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act (HAMA), the following conditions must be complied with:

Adoption of a Son

In case the adoption is of a son, the adoptive mother or father by whom the adoption is made should not have a Hindu son, son’s son or son’s son’s son living at the time of adoption. They must not have a son whether by legitimate blood relationship or by adoption.

Adoption of a Daughter

If any adoption is of a daughter, the adoptive father or mother by whom the adoption is made should not have a Hindu daughter, daughter ‘s daughter or daughter ‘s daughter ‘s son living at the time of adoption. They must not have a son whether by legitimate blood relationship or by adoption.

Prohibition of Payments

Payments related to adoption are prohibited under the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act (HAMA):

• No person can receive or agree to receive any payment or rewards in consideration of the adoption of any person
• No person can make or agree to give any payment or reward to any other person the receipt of which is prohibited by this section
• If any person contravenes the provisions of this section, he/she will be punishable with imprisonment, which may extend to six months or with fine or with both.
• No prosecution under this section will be instituted without the previous sanction of the State Government or an officer authorised by the State Government in this behalf.

You better get registered at CARA site online for the adoption procedure. Because it's proposed changes to HAMA so that parents who adopt a child mandatorily register their deed of adoption on CARA's web portal.

1. You shall have to apply before the CARA (Central Adoption Resource Authority) for getting permission for the said adoption.

2. Thereafter you shall have to engage a lawyer for drafting the adoption deed for registering the same.

3. The consent of the biological parents, if alive, is necessary for registering the said adoption deed.

1. You should choose some child who can be adopted either from orphanage or some parents who are willing to give you the child.

2. Make adoption deed to adopt the child get it registered to officially become parent of that child. 

CARA is the nodal agency for adoption of children. Kindly contact  the agency as it is a government designated nodal agency.

Regards 

Any male Hindu, having a sound mind, a major, and is eligible for adopting a child can adopt a child. If the male Hindu is married and wants to adopt a child he has to take the consent of his wife as well before adoption, and the consent should be free.

Any Female Hindu, having a sound mind, a major, and is eligible for adopting a child can adopt a child. If the Female Hindu is married and wants to adopt a child she has to take the consent of her husband as well before adoption, and the consent should be free.

Conditions for adoption by Hindu couples or single parent

1. When a Hindu male or a Female want to adopt a son, they should not have a son living whether legitimate or illegitimate, at the time of adoption.
2. When a male or a Female Hindu want to adopt a daughter, they should not have a daughter or son’s daughter living at the time of adoption.
3. If a male wants to adopt a daughter, he should be at least 21 years older than the adoptive daughter.
4. If a Female wants to adopt a son, she should be at least 21 years older than the adoptive son.

Any child below 18 years can be adopted. Under HAMA only father and mother can give child in adoption. Guardian with the permission of court. 

Twenty-one years difference between adoptive mother and male child. Female child, no such condition.

Adoption deed will register at sub registrar office.

HAMA is an old law, the only law until the year 2000, legalizing adoptions for Hindus. It allows a Hindu couple / parent to adopt a Hindu child from another Hindu couple / parent. HAMA was perhaps meant to facilitate adoption between known set of parents, probably of a known child and under known circumstance.

In India all adoption issues are handled by the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), an autonomous body governed by the Ministry of Women & Child Development.

– A minimum age difference of 21 years between the single mother and the adopted child is required if they’re of opposite sexes.

– A single parent should be between 30 – 45 years in age if she wishes to adopt a child in the age group of 0-3 years. The upper limit for a child older than 3 years is 50.

– The single parent should have an additional family support.

– According to the rules the adoptive parent has to be both medically fit and financially settled.

– According to the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act of 1956 Indian citizens who are Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, or Buddhists are allowed to adopt not more than one child of a particular sex.

Under the HAMA, a female Hindu who has never married, has divorced or been widowed, can adopt a son or a daughter. She will have to also show an additional family support system and may have to appoint a guardian for her child, in the event of her untimely death.

A giving and taking in adoption is a must. An adoption deed is to be made and registered. 

Age of the child should not be more than 15 years

You should be 21 year older than the child if he is a male child.

You should not have any child of your own .

Dear Madam,

Parents adopting a child under the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act (HAMA) could soon be required to mandatorily register the adoption with country's apex adoption body as part of efforts to check trafficking, a senior government official said.

Prospective parents can adopt a child under the stringent Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act, 2015. Additionally, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs have the option of formalising an adoption through the 60-year-old HAMA.

Officials say that while the JJ Act has provisions for verifying the source of the child as well as a thorough background check of the prospective parents, these pre- requisites are missing from HAMA, thereby, allowing many to take advantage of its loopholes.

"The ministry of women and child development has prepared a draft Cabinet note proposing an amendment to HAMA in order to make it compulsory for parents to register with the apex adoption body, Child Adoption Resource Authority (CARA)," a ministry spokesperson said.

The note is being circulated among the ministries of finance, home affairs and law and the Prime Minister's Office, before it is taken up by the Union Cabinet, the official said.

"Adoption under HAMA is very simple and two Hindus can exchange a child after filing a deed. We did a sample check and discovered that the number of adoptions under HAMA is too high and we suspect that a lot of these involve trafficked children," the spokesperson said.

The ministry has proposed changes to HAMA so that parents who adopt a child mandatorily register their deed of adoption on CARA's web portal, following which they will be issued a certificate of adoption.

CARA CEO Lt. Col. Deepak Kumar said that the move will allow it to maintain a 'national adoption register' which will compile data on adoptions under HAMA, in addition to those that take place through its web portal.

"HAMA is a big hole in our net. We need to widen our net so that we can monitor all adoptions. But first we need to record these by having a national adoption register," Kumar told.

The official explained that the adoption agency carried out a study where data from one of the total 22 sub-registrars in Delhi was collected, which showed that 145 adoption deeds were registered in the past three years.

He added that if this data is extrapolated, it can be assumed that over 3,000 children were adopted under HAMA in the past three years in Delhi alone.

"But these are only those adoptions that are actually legally formalised. We found out from the Collector of Stamps in Delhi that in 14 months there were 3,200 stamps sold for the purpose of adoption. If all these stamps are being used lawfully, we should have seen nearly 9,000 adoptions during these three years," Kumar explained.

In a bid to reform the adoption procedure in the country and bring more transparency, the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development brought a new set of guidelines in August, 2015.

For the first time, the entire adoption procedure was transferred online, to be monitored by the Central Adoption Resource Authority, the nodal body regulating adoptions in India.

However, despite the new mechanism, CARA hasn't seen an increase in adoption and recorded a mere 3,788 adoptions across the country in 2016, while there were four to five times the number of parents waiting to bring home a child.

Officials hope that once they have data on adoptions under HAMA, they will have a more realistic picture.

The Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956, is applicable to Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs and gives an adopted child all the rights enjoyed by a biological child.

Until the universal JJ Law came into existence, Muslims, Parsis, Christians and Jews had no adoption law and would have to approach the court under the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890, and get the guardianship of a child until he or she turned 18.