Personal and Customary Law of Adoption For Christians
In the absence of statutory law of adoption for Christians, personal law and customary law on adoption has come to be recognised by the Indian Courts. The earliest decision on this subject seems to be the one rendered in connection with a case of Indian Christians of Punjab reported in Sohan Lal V. A.Z. Makuin (AIR 1929 Lahore 230) . The Lahore High Court held that in the case of Punjabi convert Christians it may be possible to prove the customary right of adoption applicable to them as members of their original caste. Again, in 1945 a Full Bench of the Lahore High Court held that among the agricultural tribes of Punjab, adoption is in no sense connected with religion and is a purely a secular arrangement resorted to by a sonless owner of land in order to nominate a person to succeed him as his heir. The object of such an adoption is not to secure any religious benefit for the soul of the adopter but to obtain a practical and temporal benefit. During his lifetime, the adopter secures the assistance of the appointed heir in cultivation and after his death the appointed heir inherits the estate of his adoptive father to the exclusion of the adoptive father’s collaterals. In yet another case, the Allahabad High Court held that it is necessary for the party to allege and prove that there is a custom of adoption among the Christian community in Punjab or any section of that community, before any question as to whether any such adoption confers on the alleged adopted boy the same rights as an adoption in Hindu law confers on him, can be considered (see Ranbir Karam Singh V. Jogindra C. Bhattachargi, AIR 1940 All. 134 at 139). Irrespective of religion, people belonging to the agricultural tribes of Punjab can prove adoption and it is valid in the eye of law. By virtue of these decisions customary law on adoption among Panjabi Christians can be proved from case to case and that right seems to be judicially recognised. However, in a case where a girl child was adopted while the adoptive parent was a Buddhist and the adoptive parent subsequently became a Christian and died as a Christian, the Rangoon High Court held that an adopted child is not an heir entitled upon intestacy to inherit the estate of his deceased adoptive parent (see Ma Khin Than V. Ma Ahma AIR 1934 Rangoon 72).
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