The Supreme Court directed the State Surrogacy Board to consider the application.
Bangalore:
The Karnataka High Court has ordered a couple to undergo a triple test – genetic, physical and economic – for consent to have a child through surrogacy.
Since the spouse was 57 years old and over the prescribed age, and secondly, the prospective surrogate mother was not genetically related to them, they were not eligible to have a child through surrogacy.
The court did not address their plea for annulment of Sections 2(1)(zg) and 4(iii)(c)(I) of the Surrogacy Act as a similar case is pending before the Supreme Court.
However, it directed the State Surrogacy Board to “consider the application and issue appropriate orders for the issuance of a certificate of suitability within four weeks.”
Along with their application to the relevant authorities, the couple was instructed to submit an affidavit based on the following criteria: petitioner/father must commit to undergoing the genetic test to verify gamete/sperm strength and its quality, the economic capacity of the prospective couple for the growth of the child and to the measures taken to secure life through the creation of property or a fixed deposit in the name of the child.
Also, measures should be taken for the education of the child as the father or the mother, if they are physically unable to raise the child, it does not mean that the petitioners will abandon the child or put it at the mercy from whomever. otherwise.
The case concerns a couple from Bengaluru who approached the Supreme Court seeking permission to have a child through surrogacy.
Their only son, a 23-year-old MBBS student, had died in an accident in December 2022. They then fell into a depression.
Their efforts to adopt a child proved futile, as the Central Authority for Adoption Resources informed them that a large number of prospective parents were registered to adopt children and that it would take a minimum of three years.
The woman has had her uterus removed for medical reasons and is therefore unable to bear a child.
The husband’s sister-in-law had agreed to donate her egg and a 25-year-old woman had agreed to become a surrogate mother with the husband’s sperm and sister-in-law’s egg.
According to Article 2(1)(c) only a genetically related woman can be a surrogate mother for a couple.
The 25-year-old was not genetically related in this case. The couple’s case was that she agreed to it purely for “altruistic” reasons and not for “commercial” reasons.
Further, section 4(c)(I) prescribes that the prospective couple must be married and that the woman must not have exceeded the age of 50 and the man must not have exceeded the age of 55. In this case, the man is 57.
Judge M. Nagaprasanna said in his April 21 verdict: “The words ‘genetically related’ appearing in section 2(1) (so-called) can only mean that the child born by surrogacy must be genetically related to the prospective couple , failing which , the words genetically related would have any meaning if the surrogate mother were said to be genetically related to the prospective couple. That defeats both altruism and logic.” But as a similar case was pending in the Supreme Court, the HC has not made any decisions on the couple’s petition.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
