4 years on, boy reunited with family as foster parents lose legal battle

This is not a plot out of any Bollywood flick or TV serial. It actually happened in the Capital and the reunion took place in a local court on Tuesday.

Dinesh Kumar Sharma and Babita, Pratik’s parents, were in tears and speechless with joy. Sharma’s sister Jyoti told Newsline: “We feel blessed as the child is back with the family. It’s a divine intervention. It was only after a court battle that we got him back.” The family headed to a temple immediately after they got Pratik’s custody from Anil and Vandana Jindal, who had adopted him.

Additional District Judge Surinder Rathi allowed the custody of Pratik to Dinesh and his wife Babita, after a four-year legal battle against industrialist Anil Jindal who also runs a school in Delhi.

The organisation from where Jindal had adopted the child drew the court’s ire. “It is high time that lessons were learnt or else children would continue falling prey to unscrupulous elements,” the court said expressing displeasure over the adoption process

Pratik was lost when he was playing in Matiala area of Uttam Nagar. Dinesh Sharma, a truck driver, kept searching for him until he learnt that the child had been handed over to Bal Bihar Orphanage Centre in Palam. In his petition for Pratik’s custody, Sharma said he married Babita in 2001 and his son was born the next year — the couple also had a daughter later. On February 18, 2004, while playing in front of his maternal grandmother’s house at Uttam Nagar, he lost his way and went missing. Sharma contacted various authorities and ran from pillar to post to get his son back, but in vain. Somebody from Matiala, meanwhile, informed him that Pratik was first kept in a police station for a day and later sent to the Bal Bihar Orphanage Centre.

When Sharma contacted the orphanage for taking back his two-year-old son, after showing his photographs, they allegedly refused to hand over Pratik to him. Instead, the boy was given to the Jindals.

Through their counsel, the Jindals told the court that they took good care of the child.

The court came down heavily on the police and said: “The manner in which the case was handled shows that the agencies which are bound to safeguard the interest of such destitute and lost children have not only failed in their duty but are also aiding and abetting illegality... This appears to be a classic example of a system’s failure to come to the rescue of a child, who accidentally got separated from his parents.”

Seeking a status report within eight weeks, the court directed the Delhi Police Commissioner to hold a detailed inquiry into the matter so as to inquire the conduct of the local police. It also directed the police to inquire into the functioning of NGOs in adoption cases.