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5h ago

Supreme Court Exempts Pre‑2022 Surrogacy Cases From Age Limits

The bench fixed the operative start of surrogacy at embryo freezing after gamete extraction to preserve rights accrued before the law.

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The court held that in the three cases, the couples were in the last stage expected from the intended couple, as all remaining stages involved the surrogate mother. (Representative photo)

Overview

  • A bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and K.V. Viswanathan held that couples who had extracted gametes and frozen embryos before January 25, 2022 are not bound by the statute’s age bar.
  • The court said this stage marks the couples’ completed role in the process, so applying age limits later would be retrospective.
  • The Union’s plea to apply age caps retrospectively on child‑welfare and gamete‑quality grounds was rejected, with the court noting there is no age bar for natural conception or adoption.
  • Thursday’s order resolves three couples’ pleas for eligibility certificates and directs similarly placed couples to seek relief from their jurisdictional High Courts, with a detailed judgment to follow.
  • The ruling does not decide the overall validity of the age limits or other provisions, which remain under challenge alongside the related ART law; the statute sets ages of 23–50 for women and 26–55 for men.