HC slams TV show for sensationalising an adoption to increase viewership

The Madras High Court, which was seized of an episode, wherein the host of the show had tarnished the sanctity of a legal adoption by substituting it with the image of child trafficking, has sought the DGP, Tamil Nadu and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of both the Centre and State, to re-examine the permission granted for telecast of the show.

The shocking episode came to light following an FIR being registered against a couple — KM Shaji Kumar and KM Sheeja, for child trafficking. The noble gesture of legally adopting an unwanted child with the consent of the biological parents, turned into a nightmare and agony, owing to the screenplay and direction of the persons behind the telecast of the TV show. 

As per the case, M Sumathi along with her husband Mohanraj, had wholeheartedly consented to give her third male child to the couple in view of their inability to raise the child, owing to poverty. The adoption deed was also registered on March 9, 2017 with the sub-Registrar, Sriperumbadur and the child’s custody handed over to the adoptive parents. 

While that being so, there arose a matrimonial dispute between Sumathi and her husband, in consequence of which, she was advised to participate in the said TV show, to ventilate her grievances against her husband. But being innocent of the nature of the TV show, the producer Stephen and the programme host Lakshmi Ramakrishnan, had reportedly tutored her to falsely state that her husband had sold the child to the said couple. After the telecast of the show, the circumstances that had emerged had coerced her to give a false complaint against the couple on the strength of the statements made by her in the TV show. 

Justice MS Ramesh before whom the plea by the couple came up,  on recording the whole affidavit filed by Sumathi in his order, said, “From the reading of the statements made in the aforesaid affidavit, it is seen that the adoption was valid in law. It is also seen that the biological mother had no intention at all to file a case against the petitioners and others for a penal offence of trafficking a minor. On an overall reading of the averments in the affidavit, if at all any offence could be made out, viewing the entire narration of events in the affidavit, the persons responsible for tutoring the defacto complainant during the show can be arrayed as an accused,” the judge added.

However, on undoing the mischief caused by the TV show by uniting the child with the adoptive parents, Justice Ramesh also held that the present case is an unfortunate example of an incident being created as per the whims and fancies of the persons behind the show for popularising the programme at the cost of an infant being deprived of both its adoptive parents as well as the biological parents.