Couples paid up to Rs 30 lakh for a child Dr Pachipala Namratha promised was theirs. Police say newborns were bought and handed over; names of biological parents never recorded.
Dr Pachipala Namratha's fertility clinics ran in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh for nearly 3 decades. Her patients got someone else’s child. Her agents got Rs 50k a baby, police say.
ED claims newborns were procured from poor families, birth certificates forged, & childless couples charged up to Rs 30 lakh in a trafficking racket masked as surrogacy services.
On petitions filed by 3 couples, Justices Nagarathana & Vishwanathan emphasised that a law is deemed to have only prospective application unless it is explicitly expressed or implied.
The man has argued that excluding single & divorced men from surrogacy under the law in unconstitutional. SC is also hearing other challenges to the Act.
The use of the term 'universal crime' to describe the ban evokes the Italian criminal code for crimes that contravene 'universal values'—putting surrogacy on par with genocide.
Italy extends surrogacy ban already in place in Italy since 2004 to those who go to countries such as the US or Canada imposing 2-year jail term and fines of up to $1.09mn.
Centre’s notification this month allows couples to use one donor gamete. But it also makes it mandatory that a surrogate child should have one gamete of the intended parents.
SC indicates it might stay a provision of Surrogacy (Regulation) Rules, 2022, that bars intending parents from accepting donor eggs to bear a surrogate child.
After dominating India’s crude imports since 2023, Russian supplies slowed amid US sanctions, but a 30-day ‘waiver’ amid West Asia tensions could now push flows back towards 2 mbpd.
Trump has ushered in the age of humiliation. His method is to push around America’s friends rudely and publicly. He knows none of them can afford to fight back.
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