Source: http://www.indianexpress.com
Krishnadas Rajagopal Fri Aug 13 2010, 09:22 hrs New Delhi:
Adopted by a German couple 37 years ago, Dohle is trying to find his biological mother. IE photo: Renuka Puri
ARUN Dohle, 37, is in search of the “young lady” who gave birth to him. Through her, the bespectacled, rather shy man hopes to find his true identity and the truth about his adoption by a German couple in 1973 from a clinic in Pune, when he was only four weeks’ old.
One such “truth”, according to him, is that he is the biological son of the brother of Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar. And that the Pawars played a “dominant role” in recommending his adoption to the “childless” Dohles.
The Maharashtra government, however, told the Supreme Court on Thursday that there was no truth in Dohle’s claim. A Bench of Justices Markandeya Katju and T S Thakur read out specific portions of a confidential report submitted by the DGP Maharashtra that said “there is no evidence to say that the petitioner is related to Pratap Pawar or Sharad Pawar or their family.”
However, Shekhar Naphade, appearing for Dohle, argued the report submitted by the police was false and claimed they had evidence in the form of a DNA test establishing that he was from the Pawar family. The apex court posted the matter for further hearing to Monday.
Dohle has travelled from his adoptive parents’ home in Hergenrath, Belgium, to see if the Supreme Court, his last resort, would intervene and help him.
Thirteen years of dogged search — from the day of his return to India in 1997 to Thursday morning at the first hearing of his case in the SC — has only left Dohle armed with scraps of information about who he is. These scraps, which make his case in the SC, include official records showing his birth date as July 31, 1973, at Pune’s Sasoon Hospital.
A German couple, Michael and Gertrude Dohle, adopted him four weeks later from Kusumbai Motichand Mahila Seva Gram (KMMSG) after his mother reportedly abandoned him.
Dohle, however, claims he was kidnapped from his mother by KMMSG — an institution for destitute women — and given away for adoption. His hopes rest on the confidential report by the Maharashtra Police — filed in the SC in 2004 and forgotten later — a copy of which was handed over to him on Thursday, to be studied and discussed at the next hearing of the case. Dohle believes it will put an end to the “state machinery’s display of complete lack of humanity”, and may be the key to his mother’s identity.
An August 2001 letter from Michael, his adoptive father, requested the Indian authorities to help his son with the “delicate project” to contact his biological mother. However, he wasn’t allowed access to the adoption records at KMMSG.
A Bombay High Court Division Bench had in 2004 agreed with the state police and the Seva Gram authorities’ conclusion that the biological mother was “an unwed mother who relinquished the child, and disclosing her name in court or to give her notice would be highly embarrassing”. Dohle’s lawyer told the Bench on Thursday that “the story of relinquishment is an eyewash” and the adoption a “fraud”.
Dohle has also placed on record Michael’s letter in the SC, which says: “I think he (Arun) is able to accept if there is really no chance. So he will accept a personal no by his mother herself.”
Michael’s letter also explains his son’s desire to find his biological mother: “We supported his way to find out the circumstances of his birth and even the effort to contact his natural mother, although it made us think why… Today we know that it was and
it is a deficit of one’s personal identity….” with PTI.
