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.
Supreme Court stayed operation of Rule 7 — which bans use of donor eggs — of Surrogacy (Regulation) Act for a woman suffering from a rare disorder that affects female reproductive system.
Court directs surrogacy board to consider plea of couple who lost son to accident. Legislature must look at changes to law as board has no scope to salvage unique cases, it adds.
Contrary to naysayers, the RSS practices what it preaches. It is closer to the Gandhian teaching of improving the individual morally and spiritually to change the external environment.
This is the game every nation is now learning to play. Some are finding new allies or seeing value among nations where they’d seen marginal interest. The starkest example is India & Europe.
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