• Adoption of wife's daughter from her previous marriage

Dear Sirs,
Have remarried and my wife has a daughter from her previous marriage who carries her BIOLOGICAL father's name in all documents. My wife's divorce was through a mutual consent whereby complete custody and responsibility of the daughter rests my wife and visitation / meeting rights have been awarded to my wife's previous partner. As per the advise of advocate of my in-laws, we completed the procedure to change the daughter's name through state govt. gazette and an affidavit has also been created declaring the change of name of my daughter with my name as her father. No procedure around ADOPTION has been initiated as yet. My questions are as under -

1. Whether ADOPTION is still necessary or can I be automatically designated as FATHER of the daughter of my wife basis my marriage registration certificate?

2. if yes, what is the procedure of ADOPTION procedure and the likely fees / cost of the entire procedure

3. Will there be any impact on the ADOPTION procedure considering that we have already completed the Name Change Procedure through State Govt. Gazette? if yes, what could be done now?

4. How much time will the ADOPTION procedure take to complete?

Regards
Yomesh
Asked 7 years ago in Family Law
Religion: Hindu

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6 Answers

Deed of adoption has to be executed by the biological parents in your favour

2) deed of adoption has to be registered

3) you cannot be designated as the father of the girl unless deed of adoption is executed

4) mere affidavit with gazette notification executed would make you the father of child

5) legal fees vary

Ajay Sethi
Advocate, Mumbai
94520 Answers
7485 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

1. Despite the custody being absolutely given to your wife it does not uproot her daughter from her biological father. The adoption deed is required to be executed in your favour by the biological father of the daughter.

2. The adoption deed will have to be registered in the office of sub-registrar.

3. The cost will be the fee of your lawyer for preparing the adoption deed and the registration cost. It should not take more than 2 days if the biological father agrees to give the daughter in adoption to you.

Ashish Davessar
Advocate, Jaipur
30763 Answers
972 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

Adoption” means the process through which the adopted child is permanently separated from his biological parents and become the legitimate child of his adoptive parents with all the rights, privileges and responsibilities that are attached to the relationship. Three legislations allow Indian citizens to adopt children:

• The Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act of 1956

• The Guardians and Wards Act of 1890

• The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act of 2000, amended in 2006

In your case your wife’s ex-husband, is still the natural guardian of the child under the Hindu law for adoption consent of biological father is must that is consent from your wife’s first husband is must and then adoption deed should be duly registered.

If your wife’s ex-husband is not available to give consent then you cannot adopt your child as latter has no right over the child born out of your wifes first marriage. Your wife’s ex husband does not consent to adoption there is no way you can adopt the child

In every adoption, the following conditions must be complied with :-

(i) if the adoption is of a son, the adoptive father or mother by whom the adoption is made must not have a Hindu son, son’s son or son’s son’s son (whether by legitimate blood relationship or by adoption) living at the time of adoption.

(ii) if the adoption is of a daughter, the adoptive father or mother by whom the adoption is made must not have a Hindu daughter or son’s daughter (whether by legitimate blood relationship or by adoption) living at the time of adoption.

(iii) if the adoption is by a male and the person to be adopted is a female, the adoptive father is at least twenty-one years older than the person to be adopted.

(iV) the same child may not be adopted simultaneously by two or more persons.

(vi) the child to be adopted must be actually given and taken in adoption by the parents or guardian concerned or under their authority with intent to transfer the child from the family or its both (or in the case of an abandoned child or child whose parentage is not known, from the place or family where it has been brought up) to the family of its adoption.

Deed of adoption has to be registered in your favor by biological father

Ajay N S
Advocate, Ernakulam
4072 Answers
110 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

1. Your said act of replacing her father's name with that of yours is illegal and it will create problem for her later on. You shall have to register an adoption deed for taking your wife's daughter in adoption with the consent of her biological father.

2. Register an adoption deed as stated above.

3. Reverse the name change and ensure that all her educational certificates bear her biological father's name as her father till you take her in adoption when only you can replace her father's name with that of yours.

4. It will take one day to get the adoption deed registered and one day to draft and get the deed printed for registration.

Krishna Kishore Ganguly
Advocate, Kolkata
27191 Answers
726 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

1. Just because you married your wife with her daughter, you cannot become her designated father. You ,may be termed as step father and she a step daughter. Until legal adoption is taking place you cannot claim rights over the child.

2. The adoption draft can be drafted and after following the requisite formalities in this regard, a formal registration of the adoption deed may be done. The fee for the document writer/lawyer and incidentals may be enquired locally.

3. Adoption and name change are two different subjects. Just by changing the name there cannot be any impact on the proposed adoption to be executed.

4. If all the requisite formalities are duly complied, the adoption deed registration will take hardly one hour.

T Kalaiselvan
Advocate, Vellore
84711 Answers
2172 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

Hi

1) In your case, since you have made publication of change of father's name in the state gazette, technically that should suffice.

2) However mere name change in the gazette, documents is not equal to adoption.

3) Adoption means complete severance of relationship from her biological father.

4) If you are contemplating complete severance of relationship with the biological father then in my view, you should go for adoption of the daughter.

5) Adoption process (with father's consent) is pretty much straight forward and might be complete with in a week where as adoption process(without father's consent, but with the consent of the mother and her parents) should not take more than a month's time.

6) Adoption deed is pretty straight forward and simple and will cost you not more than Rs3500 including documentation, stamp duty and registration.

Hope this helps.

Rajgopalan Sripathi
Advocate, Hyderabad
2173 Answers
394 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

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