Mumbai: Pvt hospital seeks dismissal of couple’s plea for completing surrogacy procedure

Mumbai's private PD Hinduja hospital on Tuesday through an affidavit sought that the Bombay High Court dismissed a city couple’s plea to be allowed to complete their surrogacy procedure claiming it was commenced before the publication of the Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) Act and Surrogacy (Regulation) Act.

The hospital filed its affidavit before a division bench of Justice Sanjay V Gangapurwala and Justice Madhav J Jamdar. On Tuesday, Justice Jamdar recused from the hearing and hence the petitioners will move to another bench.

The couple in their petition said that the wife could not give birth naturally due to a medical issue and therefore had approached the hospital for a surrogacy procedure last year.

They had requested that the hospital transfer their cryopreserved embryos to a fertility centre in Thane so that the procedure can be continued. The laws had come into effect in January this year. The hospital had also denied that the proceedings commenced before the laws came into force and stated that the couple was given to understand that all IVF procedures are not surrogacy procedures.

"IVF procedure conducted on December 24 last year was under the then prevailing ICMR guidelines. However, the potential candidate to be considered for being a surrogate mother was not found to be medically fit for implantation and hence it cannot be said that surrogacy procedure had, in any case, commenced before the Acts came into the force," the affidavit stated.

It further added that it was only following the rules and procedures mentioned in the Acts.