Nobody wants India to become a womb-renting industry: Delhi High Court

New Delhi, December 15

The Delhi High Court Friday said the law regulating the procedure of surrogacy is intended to curb the exploitation of surrogates and no one wants India to become an “industry of renting a womb”.

The court made the observation while hearing a plea by an Indian origin couple living in Canada challenging the March 14 notification issued by the Centre amending the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act to ban donor surrogacy by altering Form 2 under Rule 7 of the Surrogacy Rules, 2022.

“This reproductive outsourcing was supposed to be curbed by the legislature and that too at the instance of the Supreme Court and we cannot go beyond it,” a bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Mini Pushkarna said.

“This is a beneficial act and it is primarily intended to curb the exploitation of surrogates. India is still a developing country and it’s not a fully developed country. Because of economic reasons many people may be swayed towards this and CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) in one of its reports is supposed to have stated that India at one point of time was a 2.3 billion dollar industry,” the bench said.

The counsel for the petitioners said they were Indian citizens and residing in Canada only for work purposes, responding to which the bench said they could undertake the surrogacy facility in that country itself.

“They are coming to India for a certain reason, because of the economic disparity over here that people can rent a womb. No one wants this country to become an industry of renting a womb. That’s not the industry we want to promote. The legislature has taken a call on it,” the Bench said.