[2025] UKUT 00352 (IAC)

The Sponsors married on 3 September 2002 and were formerly nationals of India. MT is a Consultant Psychiatrist and LA is a Clinical Psychologist. They both previously worked for the NHS. They were naturalized as British citizens on 22 September 2010. They both also retain an ‘Indian Overseas Citizen’ document.

Despite trying for a baby, the Sponsors were unable to conceive.In November 2011, having lived in the UK for several years, the Sponsors returned to India to provide care for MT’s father. Before the Appellant’s birth, the Sponsors agreed, with the approval of the Birth Parents and the wider family that they would adopt her. The Appellant’s father was struggling with addiction issues and neither of the Birth Parents were working.

The Appellant was born in August 2014. The Sponsors visited her in November 2014, but the Appellant remained living with her Birth Parents because of the Sponsors’ work commitments, the need for a support system to be arranged to assist in their parenting and because the Appellant was being breast fed.

This appeal arises from an arrangement, recorded in a ‘Deed of Adoption’, agreed between the Birth Parents and the Sponsors in March 2015 when the Appellant was about seven months old. The Deed of Adoption recorded that the Appellant was adopted by the Sponsors and would live with them. The Appellant had all the rights of an adopted daughter, the Sponsors would be responsible for her maintenance and education, and they agreed to bring her up. The Deed of Adoption also recorded that on 9 March 2015 the physical act of giving and taking the child in adoption and other customary rites and ceremonies were performed in the form of a “swasti pujah” in the presence of elders, locals, and friends as necessary. It is uncontroversial that LA was not in fact present during the ceremony on 9 March 2015. The Deed of Adoption was signed on 13 March 2015. The Appellant later went to live with the Sponsors in September 2015, together with the parents of AM and LA (“the grandparents”).

To enable the Sponsors to obtain identity documents for the Appellant and to make arrangements for her care, proceedings were issued in a Court in India. In those proceedings a Civil Judge Senior Division, Imphal West, India, considered whether the Deed of Adoption was a valid adoption under the Hindu Adoptions & Maintenance Act 1956 (“HAMA”). The judge considered the evidence before the Court, including statements provided by the Sponsors and AM, and decided, in a judgment and order dated 4 December 2015, that the Deed of Adoption executed by the Sponsors and the Appellant’s Birth Parents was a valid adoption under HAMA.

The Sponsors made an application for a British passport on behalf of the Appellant in February 2016. The application was refused by HM Passport Office on 28 September 2016 on the basis that the adoption was not a ‘Convention adoption’ (i.e. an adoption effected under the law of a country or territory in which the 1993 Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, as in force and certified in pursuance of Article 23(1) of the Convention) as required by section 1 of the British Nationality Act 1981 (as amended).

On 12 August 2016, in India, the Central Adoption Resource Authority (“CARA”) provided written confirmation that it had no objection to the “family/relative” adoption of the Appellant by the Sponsors. Although the material provided by CARA postdated the adoption, the material followed a ‘Home Study Report for prospective adoptive parents’ that was in part completed by the Sponsors and a home visit completed on 1 April 2016 by a social worker. The report set out background information regarding the Sponsors, their employment, financial circumstances and accommodation. There was also information set out regarding the reasons for the adoption, the views of other family members and the plans for the care of the Appellant in the future. No concerns were raised by the social worker and although the report did not state in terms, that the social worker recommended adoption , the social worker confirmed that all family members were happy with the adoption and that there was a healthy relationship within the family and a mutual understanding between the Sponsors.

From 2016, MT had been working as a short term locum in New Zealand. The Appellant and LA would visit him and, in November 2019, the Sponsors decided to move to New Zealand. Although that was initially for a short term, the Covid pandemic caused the family to remain in New Zealand. LA was permitted to remain in New Zealand for work and the Appellant was permitted to remain there for education.

In September 2022, MT was offered a job as a Consultant Psychiatrist in Adult Community Mental Health at Yeovil Hospital in Somerset, with a view to the family making a permanent move to the UK. On 13 November 2022, an application was made on behalf of the Appellant for entry clearance to the United Kingdom. The family returned to India at the beginning of December 2022 in anticipation of their move to the UK.

The application was refused by the Respondent on 21 February 2023 and the family therefore returned to New Zealand so that the Sponsors could continue to work until the Appellant’s immigration status in the UK was resolved. MT has since secured temporary employment for a period of five years in Australia and since January 2024 the Appellant and Sponsors have been living in Australia.