The Bombay High Court on Tuesday directed that the Director General of Foreign Trade and Department of Family Welfare of the Centre be made parties to a petition filed by a U.S. couple who want to take back their eight embryos kept in a city hospital following a recent ban by the Indian government on commercial surrogacy.
Giving this direction, a Bench headed by Justice Shantanu Kemkar posted the matter for hearing on October 24. The judges were of the opinion that import and export regulations are being governed by the Director General of Foreign Trade and it should be made a party. Moreover, the petition concerns embryos and hence Family Welfare department should be heard in this matter.
Counsel for the petitioner Ashutosh Kumbhkoni argued that the government should not adopt an adversarial approach and must find out a solution to the problem. The lawyer argued, “These are our embryos and what will the government do with them. We had brought them to India in accordance with the laws of this country and after seeking permission of the authorities. Now that surrogacy is banned in India, we want to take them back.”
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Earlier, hearing a petition filed by the American couple who wants to take back the embryos to their country, the high court had served notices to the respondents and asked them to spell out the policy of the government on the issue. During the hearing of the writ petition last month, the Bench had asked the couple how they could file this petition because the Constitution gave such a right only to Indian citizens.
However, Kumbhkoni argued that Article 21 of the Constitution gave such a right to every person, even to foreign national.
“This is because right to life includes right to have a baby and hence the couple has a right to file such a petition in the high court,” the lawyer argued.
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In April 2015, the Indian Council for Medial Research had given no objection certificate to the couple to import their frozen embryos from U.S. — PTI