Couple adopt toddler deserted by 14-year-old rape victim

A Delhi court has allowed a nurse and her husband to adopt a one-year-old child, who was deserted by a teenaged rape victim.
The nurse, who had been taking care of the baby, was pronounced her legal mother as the court allowed the adoption on grounds that she and her husband could not bear their own child even after seven years of marriage.
While allowing the couple's plea to adopt the child, the court noted that the infant had been abandoned by her 14-year-old biological mother and maternal grandparents and said her welfare lies in being with foster parents.
"I am satisfied that the child having been abandoned by her mother, needs a guardian and that the petitioners (couple) who are already looking after the child for the last one year are best to be appointed as her guardians," additional district judge Alok Agarwal said.

The nurse, working in a government hospital where the girl was born, and her husband who works in a ministry had moved the court under the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act seeking permission to adopt the baby, who has been living with them since her birth last year.
The child was born to the minor rape victim in August last year at a government hospital here.
The couple said that the name and identity of the father of the child was not known either to them or to her mother as she had conceived when she was raped in an unconscious state after being administered some intoxicating substance by the accused.

The plea stated, "The child's mother, being very young in age, was not in a position to bring up and nourish the child. It is further stated that she is also not willing to keep the child due to moral and social circumstances she and the child will have to face in future.