Adoption racket: managing trustee held

He was produced before special judge J D Kulkarni on Tuesday and was remanded in police custody till Friday. This is the first arrest in the illegal adoption case. The CBI requested four-day custody to investigate about the modus operandi,conversion of the misappropriated amount and to find out the role of other co-accused and beneficiaries.

CBI lawyer Manoj Chalandan submitted to the court that parents had given temporary custody of their children to Preet Mandir due to their compelling domestic and financial condition. However,parents were asked to sign permanent relinquishment deed of children fraudulently without their knowledge. Chalandan submitted that one of the witnesses Ramesh Dattatraya Kulkarni’s four children were taken away by Preet Mandir and are yet to be found. He further submitted that Preet Mandir produced fake and bogus non-acceptance slips,adoption coordination clearance,no-objection certificate from Central Adoption Resources Agency (CARA). Bhasin had sent one Namrata for inter country adoption without ACA clearance with unidentified CARA officials abusing their official position to issue an NoC. There have been 70 instances of illegal adoption between 2002 and 2005 in which he charged excess money of Rs 50,000 from adoptive parents. He also alleged that Bhasin has misappropriated the orphanage fund for his own use to the tune of Rs 25,70,016 between 2002 and 2007.

Advocate Rohit Tulpule refuted the charges of kidnapping,forgery and misappropriation. He argued that all adoptions were done with consent from family court,district court,high court and Supreme Court as per the rules. As far as forging rejection forms is concerned,Tulpule said though the forms were filled in by Preet Mandir officials,the parents were aware that they were signing rejection forms. “Hence,there is no question of forgery.”