Kolkata: The Calcutta high court has directed that a two-year-old child would remain with a couple that had adopted her, despite the biological mother’s tearful plea to get her back, noting that a lower court had passed the order for adoption of the child.

A division bench comprising justices Ashim Kumar Ray and M.M. Banerjee observed that since it was hearing a habeas corpus petition by the girl’s biological mother Jayashree Chowdhury, it would not tinker with the order of a Malda district court that had allowed the adoption.

The bench said Ms Jayashree would have to move the appropriate forum if she wanted any relief with regard to the adoption issue. The division bench had earlier this week directed the authorities concerned in Malda district to locate the child by December 2, following which the CID produced the child, along with the couple that adopted her, in the court on Friday.

Ms Jayashree had married Sumanta Sarkar in her teens and had given birth to the child in September 2014. Within a few months of the birth of the child, she filed a complaint with Englishbazar women’s police station of having been thrown out of her in-laws’ house. The child was then handed over to an NGO, which volunteers in child rights and protection, and Ms Jayashree was sent to a government home.

As the child had reportedly fallen ill, she was admitted to a hospital and then reportedly handed over to another NGO for upkeep.