An adopted child shall be deemed to be the child of his or her adoptive father or mother for all purposes with effect from the date of the adoption, and from such date all the ties of the child in the family of his or her birth shall be deemed to be severed and replaced by those created by the adoption in the adoptive family:
Provided that
(a) the child cannot marry any person whom he or she could not have married if he or she had continued in the family of his or her birth;
(b) any property which vested in the adopted child before the adoption shall continue to vest in such person subject to the obligations, if any, attaching to the ownership of such property, including the obligation to maintain relatives in the family of his or her birth;
(c) the adopted child shall not divest any person of any estate which vested in him or her before the adoption.
Legal Commentary & Landmark Judgments: Section 12
Section 12 of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956 defines the legal effects of adoption, severing natural family ties and vesting full status in the adoptive family.
Section 12 enacts the total legal integration of the child into the adoptive family, preserving vested property rights while transplanting all familial ties.
Section 12 firmly establishes the 'doctrine of replacement' while abolishing the chaotic pre-Act shastric doctrine of relation-back. Under the proviso (c), adoption operates strictly prospectively: it does not reopen settled successions or divest collateral relatives who have already inherited an absolute estate prior to the date of adoption.