CBI admits its report on scam was ‘faulty’

Nearly two years after giving a clean chit to Preet Mandir, a Pune-based adoption agency, the CBI on Thursday admitted that its probe against the agency was “faulty”.

The agency was under the scanner for allegedly selling babies in the guise of international adoptions.

Additional solicitor general DJ Khambata told the Bombay high court that the report submitted by CBI investigating officer R Doodraj in 2007 was faulty. Khambata sought the court’s nod for further investigation.

Directing the Centre to file an affidavit, justice Bilal Nazki and justice AR Joshi asked Khambata if any action was proposed against the investigating officer. Khambata told the court that Doodraj took voluntary retirement from the CBI.

“Find him then,” Nazki said. Advait Foundation, an NGO, had filed a petition in 2006 alleging large-scale malpractices undertaken by the Preet Mandir management. It alleged that the adoption agency demanded donations of $6,000 and above from prospective foreign adoptive parents. It said that despite the rule that in-country adoption should account for at least 50% of all adoption from a centre, Preet Mandir gave 1,000 children in foreign adoption against 62 inside the country in 2005-2006.