Couple strikes Bombay HC looking for nod to finish surrogacy process

By PTI

MUMBAI: A pair on Tuesday moved the Bombay High Court looking for permission to finish a surrogacy process they’d initiated in a city-based hospital earlier than the brand new Assisted Reproductive Technology and Surrogacy Act got here into impact.

The plea was submitted earlier than a trip bench led by Justice N W Sambre looking for pressing listening to, and it will likely be heard on Wednesday. The petitioner’s counsel, PV Dinesh, additionally sought that as interim reduction, the couple be permitted to switch their cryopreserved embryos from the stated hospital to a different fertility clinic.

The lawyer stated that whereas the couple’s fertilised embryo had been preserved by the hospital for switch to a surrogate, the brand new Act got here into impact in January this yr. The new Assisted Reproductive Technology and Surrogacy Act prohibits surrogacy until it’s purely altruistic.

And amongst different stringent provisions, it mandates that solely a married relative with a toddler of her personal can act as a surrogate. The respondent hospital subsequently, put the couple’s process on maintain stating that they are going to want a court docket order to renew the process.

The hospital’s counsel Anita Castellino instructed the bench that the provisions of the brand new Act have been complete and sophisticated and that she wanted time to file a complete reply to the plea. However, the court docket stated it’s going to hear the matter on Wednesday earlier than passing any orders.