It takes just one bad decision to undo a lot of good work. That decision was taken recently by the Central Adoption Resource Authority - India's nodal adoption body - when it chose to bar partners in live-in relationships from adopting children, on the grounds that unmarried couples cannot provide a stable home for a child. The problems with such a move are numerous and, more important, worrying in their implications in a country like India, where a significant section of the vast population comprises children in desperate need of homes. It is nobody's argument that children should just be handed over to anyone looking to adopt without first conducting adequate checks. In fact, the new adoption guidelines issued in 2017 made the screening process even more rigorous. The grounds for rejecting applications, however, must stem from valid concerns. Unfortunately, the recent move might result in many children being deprived of good homes.

First, given that single men and women are allowed to adopt children, how will the agency tackle a situation in which a parent starts living with his or her partner after the adoption process has been completed? The chief executive officer of Cara said that the agency has considered this possibility, but "can't predict what [will happen] in future". The fact that it has no plan about what ought to be done in such circumstances implies that a child's well-being ceases to be a concern for the agency once it has been adopted. This calls into question its worry about giving the child a "stable" home, and indicates that it is more concerned with adhering to socially-sanctioned ideas of what constitutes a "stable family". This is in direct contradiction to the stance repeatedly taken by the judiciary; a recent Supreme Court ruling said that unmarried adults have the right to live together, acknowledging that such relationships are on a par with marriages. Even the legislature recognizes live-in relationships, as the rights of women living with their partners are protected under the domestic violence law. The adoption body's retrograde decision only highlights the gap between the mindset of the judiciary and that of the nation's agencies and institutions. A stable home environment for a child can only be created when the parents, irrespective of their marital status, share a healthy relationship. In its zeal to promote the idea that marriage and family are inextricably linked, the agency discounts the fact that a vitiated atmosphere can even be found in a marital home. This is deeply damaging for the child, whose primary need is a home free of fear and violence.