NEW DELHI: Registered Public Charitable Trust Pink Legal, has moved to the Delhi High Court seeking impleadment in a plea challenging the vires of the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act, 2021 and the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021. This trust was established for the benefit of citizens across India particularly for women and children
The plea was moved by Advocate Aarzoo Aneja, in which they seek to challenge various provisions of the Acts for not being in consonance with Article 14 and Article 21 of the Constitution of India.
In the plea, it states that restricting surrogacy only to married couples and disqualifying others on the basis of their gender, marital status, sexual orientation, age does not qualify the test of equality and has no connection with the objective of the legislation.
The plea says, “It is settled law that the right of reproduction autonomy is part of personal liberty as guaranteed under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. The right to make decisions about reproduction is essentially a very personal decision of the individual either on the part of a man or woman. Necessarily, such a right includes the right not to reproduce,”
Further, they added that the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act 2021 prohibits the people, who are similarly placed from exercising their right to reproduction choice without any basis: Unmarried women, Heterosexual and Homosexual Couples who are in live 1n relationships for a long time and are living under the same roof, Married women who have a surviving child, Couple who has a surviving child, Divorced men, Widowed men, Unmarried men, Women (married/unmarried) who have no medical indication necessitating gestational surrogacy and Men (married/unmarried) who have no medical indication necessitating gestational surrogacy.
It has also been stated that a complete ban on commercial surrogacy is arbitrary and has no correlation with the objection to be achieved i.e. regulation of surrogacy and preventing exploitation of surrogate mothers.
Furthermore, the plea also argues that there is no online date available that indicates whether Delhi has constituted a State Assisted Reproductive Technology Board or whether there has been compliance with Section 9 and Section 12 of the Act.
It states that the Government Authority should make appropriate information available in this regard.
The plea states that some of the provisions of the Acts are discriminatory against a single man desirous of being a father through surrogacy and a married woman who already has a child and is desirous of expanding her family through the means of surrogacy.
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