Surrogacy act: HC seeks hospital reply to couple’s plea seeking transfer of preserved embryo

The petitioner couple said that the wife had lost both her children and could no longer give natural birth to a child due to a medical issue, and therefore, approached the Hinduja Hospital to undergo a surrogacy procedure which began in October last year.

After completion of the fertilisation procedure, the resulting embryos were cryo-preserved in the hospital’s custody.

The ART Act and Surrogacy Act were effectuated from January this year and the petitioners began requesting the hospital to transfer the embryo to the fertility clinic, their plea said. The hospital initially said that the couple could not transfer the embryos to the surrogate carrier as the new law was passed because of which the hospital, in turn, could not treat the surrogate carrier.

The petitioners said they went ahead with the procedure for surrogacy in the fertility clinic, which sent a letter to Hinduja hospital asking the authorities to transfer the embryos. However, as per the petitioners, the hospital did not give any response for two weeks and later said that they could not transfer the embryos due to conflicting legal views.

The hospital’s lawyer stated that the ART Act stipulated setting up of regulatory authorities such as national or state boards within 90 days of the law coming into force and that pleas can be addressed to such boards. The petitioners said that such a board has not been constituted as yet and, therefore, they had no other option than moving HC.

“We cannot decide the petition without giving an opportunity of replying to the hospital. They also cannot just transfer on your (the petitioners’) asking. There must be a procedure,” the bench said and posted further hearing to June 7.