Mumbai: In a unique ruling, a court in Maharashtra has granted the plea of a woman who wanted a second child from her estranged husband, and directed the couple to consult an assisted reproductive technology (ART) expert.
ART methods are primarily used to address infertility and include procedures such as in-vitro fertilisation, involving sperm donation. Right to reproduce is a "very intricate feminine right emanating from woman's basic human right," the family court at Nanded said in its order last week.
It directed the woman and her husband, both of whom are doctors, to meet an ART expert within a month. The couple got married in 2010 and had a child. Their relations soured subsequently and the husband filed a divorce petition at a court in Panvel in 2017.
The 35-year-old Nanded woman, moved the family court there seeking restitution of conjugal rights. She also stated that she wanted another child from her estranged husband as her first son should have a sibling.
The divorce case was stuck in the Panvel court and the woman will lose her capacity to conceive as her age advances, so she wants a child through ART, said her lawyer Shivraj Patil. In view of the broken marriage, it was essential that their son had a sibling for "sharing and caring", he argued.
