Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956
12. Effects of adoption
An adopted child shall be deemed to be the child of his or her
adoptive father or mother for all purposes with effect from the date of the
adoption and from such date all the ties of the child in the family of his or
her birth shall be deemed to be severed and replaced by those created by the
adoption in the adoptive family:
PROVIDED that-
(a) the child cannot marry any person whom he or she could not
have married if he or she had continued in the family of his or her birth;
(b) any property which vested in the adopted child before the
adoption shall continue to vest in such person subject to the obligations, if
any, attaching to the ownership of such property including the obligation to
maintain relatives in the family of his or her birth;
(c) the adopted child shall not divest any person of any estate
which vested in him or her before the adoption.
Comment: It is clear on a reading of the main part of
Section 12 and sub-section
(vi) of Section 11 that the effect of adoption under the Act is
that it brings about severance of all ties of the child given in adoption in
the family of his or her birth. The child altogether ceases to have any ties
with the family of his birth. Correspondingly, these very ties are
automatically replaced by those created by the adoption in the adoptive family.
The legal effect of giving the child in adoption must therefore be to transfer
the child from the family of its birth to the family of its adoption. Smt.
Sitabai v. Ramchandra, AIR 1970 SUPREME COURT 343