DJS Mains Notes

Question 1

Baudhyana on Sonship

Answer 1

‘Through a son one conquers the world, through a grandson one obtains the immortality, and through the great grandsons one ascends to the highest heaven’.

Question 2

Doctrine of Relating Back

Answer 2

1. The rule that when widow adopted a son, it was always deemed to be adoption to her deceased husband. This principle is known as doctrine of “relating back”.’
2. (The doctrine of relating back may be illustrated by an example, say, when a widow, whose husband died on 1.1.30, adopted a son on 1.1.40, the adoption was deemed to have taken place on 1.1.30.
3. The fiction was necessary so that it could be said that the Hindu did not die sonless)
4. Under the old Hindu law, a son adopted by his widow was deemed to be her husband’s son and therefore adoption related back to the date of death of her husband.
5. Under the Act, adoption is effective from the date on which it is made.

Question 3

Purpose of adoption in modern law

Answer 3

1. The main purpose of adoption in modern times is to provide consolation and relief to a childless person.
2. It’s purpose is to rescue the helpless, the unwanted, the destitute or the orphan child and provide it with parents and home.
3. Nevertheless, whatever is the motive, the courts need not enquire into them’. (Srinivas v Narayan 1954).

Question 4

Adoptions after HAMA.

Answer 4

1. In the present submission, the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956, has steered off clearly from all the religious and sacramental aspects of adoption and has made adoption a secular institution and secular act, so much so that even a religious ceremony is not necessary for adoptions.
2. Under the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, there cannot be two types of adoptions, one purely secular and the other the sacramental.
3. All adoptions after 1956 are
   secular, and to be valid, must conform to the requirement of the Act.

Question 5

Adoption definition.

Answer 5

The law of adoption enables a childless person to make somebody else’s child as his own.

Question 6

Effect of adoption on Child’s relations.

Answer 6

1. In the modern Hindu law, an adoption has the effect of transferring the adoptee from his natural family to that of his adopter’s conferring on him thereby the legitimate natural born son’s rights and privileges in the adopter’s family.
2. On the other hand, the adopted child loses all rights and privileges of a natural born child in the natural family.

Question 7

S. 15 HAMA explained?

Question 8

Corpus Delicti

Question 9

Indrajit Das v State of Tripura

Answer 9

1. SC noted that a case of circumstantial evidence ought to fulfil two requirements-
   Every link in the chain of circumstances necessary to establish the guilt of the accused must be proven beyond reasonable doubt and
2. All the circumstances must be consistently pointing towards the guilt of the accused.