Eminent legal experts and jurists have called upon
Parliament to enact a new law to deal with issues concerning surrogacy and
inter-country adoption.
Referring to the government’s move to bring a law on
surrogacy to prohibit commercial surrogacy, the speakers said the need of the
hour was to enact a comprehensive law which will also deal with problems of
inter-country adoption.
The Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill, 2014
proposes to regulate and supervise surrogacy clinics, prevent misuse of ART
technology, besides advocating safe and ethical practices of ART services.
The seminar was held in the capital last Friday to coincide
with the release of a book, Surrogacy in India: A Law in the making —
Revisited, authored by advcoates Anil and Ranjit Malhotra by Justice A.K. Sikri
of the Supreme Court. The book examines this journey of surrogacy in India from
2005 to 2015. Former Attorney General Soli Sorabjee, Lord Diljit Rana, British
Member of Parliament and Dr. Kavita A. Sharma, President, South Asian
University, were the special invitees.
Speakers said the Bill contemplates that surrogacy shall be
available to married Indian infertile couples only. It is proposed that
foreigners, whether single or couples, with the exception of OCIs, NRIs, PIOs
and foreigners married to Indian citizens, will be disallowed surrogacy in
India. They said in reality, commercial surrogacy is in existence for the past
over ten years and has become an unregulated medical tourism industry.
The speakers said inter-parental child removal from one
country to another is not defined in any Indian legislation and is not
specified as an offence under any statutory law.
The problem is compounded by the fact that India is not a
signatory to the Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child
Abduction, 1980, which is acceded to by 93 countries worldwide. Hence,
inter-parental child custody conflicts are invariably decided by Indian Courts
on the principle of the welfare of the child as a paramount consideration in
the best interest of the child.
A fugitive non-resident Indian parent declared a proclaimed
offender in matrimonial proceedings may not even be able to see or talk to his
children removed to India. An anguished parent armed with a foreign Court order
and unsuccessful in its enforcement in India, attempts to abduct his own child
in an attempt to repeat what the other parent did. They wanted a uniform line
of thinking to give consistency in dispensation of justice till a legislative
solution emerges.
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