Adoption Laws: Challenges Concerning Procedure from Human Rights Perspective Devinder Singh* Abstract Adoption is a legal method to create parental rights in favour of childless adoptive parents including respect to orphan, surrendered, and abandoned child or child of a relative. Initially, it was practised among the Hindus to procure a son either from family or relative to fulfil pious obligations as deciphered in religious scriptures or to ensure succession of property. It was a direct adoption and used to be a private matter amongst giver and taker, performed with confidentiality. However, to regulate such adoptions, the Guardian and Wards Act, 1890, was enacted. Later, to consolidate various practices that existed under different schools of Hindu jurisprudence and to provide harmony amongst provisions, the law was codified as the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956, to secure the paramount interest of a child. The Act, though regulated direct adoption, the issues of child trafficking, illegal adoptions, violation of child rights in case of inter country adoption increased due to unavailability of provisions concerning foreigners and NRI adoptive parents. Therefore, to keep a check, the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000, then Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2015, was enacted and CARA, i.e., Central Adoption Resource Authority was established with Adoption Guidelines. The present paper will trace the evolution of the institution of adoption to analyse how we have come to a stage where the proximity in relationship and human touch have been lost to achieve transparency and regularity in adoption and reflect upon the reasons of undue hardship and delay caused in adoption process to present recommendations. Keywords: Adoption, welfare, inter-country adoption, CARA, human rights 1. Introduction Adoption is a legal and social construct that creates a connection between families; the birth family and adoptive family may be belonging to different cultures and to different racial, * Dr. Devinder Singh is Professor and Chairperson at Department of Laws, Panjab University, Chandigarh 71