ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan has enlisted the assistance of keen legal minds as it seeks to answer key questions about the rights and modalities of adoption for parentless or deserted children in Islam.
“The answers to these questions could have far-reaching consequences and it is necessary to seek assistance before an order is passed,” Chief Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani observed yesterday.
The court took up the matter nearly 27 months after the last hearing on August 22, 2011. The matter was first brought to the notice of former CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry by philanthropist and social worker Abdus Sattar Edhi. In a letter to the then-CJ, Edhi complained that the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) was not issuing ‘Form B’ to children whose parentage was unknown or those who had been abandoned by their parents and were now living in Edhi shelters.
The three-member bench appointed former Balochistan High Court judge Tariq Mehmood and Karachi-based legal expert Makhdoom Ali Khan, as amici curiae to assist the court in deciding this complex issue. Under Section 9(1) of the Nadra Ordinance 2000, the authority is bound to register every citizen, residing in or outside Pakistan, who has attained 18 years of age, as well as registering the birth of every child no later than one month after birth.
In Pakistan, adoption is formalised only when a guardian court issues a decree or a guardianship certificate to an individual under the Guardian and Wards Act, 1890.
