MUMBAI, Feb. 1 -- The Bombay High Court on Friday held that an adopted child is entitled to take the caste of his or her adoptive parents and ordered revenue authorities to issue a Special Backward Class certificate to a boy adopted by a Pune-based couple. The division bench of justices MS Karnik and SM Modak was hearing a petition filed by Gita Dattatray Achari, a resident of Pune. In 2014, Achari and her husband adopted an abandoned boy and the adoption was approved by the Pune District Court. In 2017, they applied to the deputy collector in Pune to grant a Special Backward Classes (SBC) certificate to their child Om and include him in the caste of the Acharis. While the deputy collector granted the certificate, the sub-divisioner officer later conducted an inquiry into the matter after someone filed an anonymous complaint about Om's caste certificate. The certificate was eventually canceled in February 2018. After the Caste Certificate Committee upheld the sub-divisioner officer's order, Achari approached the high court. She said that when the parents of an adopted child are unknown and the adoption is valid, then the child's caste should be the same as that of the adoptive parents. A government lawyer opposed the petition and supported the order of the sub-divisioner officer, claiming there was no provision in the Maharashtra Caste Validity Act to grant a caste certificate to an adopted child. The lawyer upheld the cancellation of the caste certificate issued to the boy. The high court, however, rejected the argument, stating that the sub-divisioner officer and the Caste Scrutiny Committee did not consider the legal effects of adoption, as defined in the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act. "When the process of adoption is completed, the adopted child becomes the legitimate child of the adoptive parents and all rights, privileges and responsibilities are bestowed on him which are attached to that relationship," the bench said. "If such a right is not bestowed on him, his future will remain in limbo and will be dark," it added. The judges asserted that the adopted child needs to be given a legal status as the child of adoptive parents and therefore the petitioner's son must be declared to belong to the Special Backward Category to which his adoptive parents belong. The court also directed the authorities to issue her adopted son a caste certificate and validity certificate as well....