(Image source from: Lokmatnews.in)
On Tuesday Bombay High Court stated that a sperm or egg donor has no legal right to the child and cannot claim as their biological parent. The court while allowing the visitation rights of a 42-year-old woman to her five-year-old twin daughters passed these statements. The woman in her plea stated that her daughters were born via surrogacy and were living with her husband and younger sister. The petitioner's husband claims that her younger sister was the egg donor and said that she is their biological parents and his wife has no right over them. A single bench justice Milind Jadhav, has refused the contention. Concluding the petitioner’s claim, the court has cleared that the egg donor has no legitimate right to claim as biological parents. She is a volunteer donor and may be a genetic mother but nothing more right for her twin children.
However, advocates said that the surrogacy agreement was made in 2018 and will not fall under the Surrogacy Regulation Act 2021 and will fall under the guidelines issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research ICMR 2005. According to those guidelines, the surrogate mother and donor both have some restricted rights to the children. However, the court did not accept the guidelines even though the twins were living with the petitioner’s husband and sister, who is a biological mother. The court cleared that the sperm/ oocyte (egg) donor shall not have parental rights or even duties about the child. In this matter, the younger sister of the petitioner can have no right or even claim to be the biological mother of the twin daughters.
In December 2018, the babies were conceived by a surrogate woman and the girls were born in 2019, as the couple were unable to conceive naturally. In 2019, the sister’s family met with a road accident and her husband and daughter were killed. The petitioner's sister started living with the petitioner's husband and twin daughters from 2019 August to March 2021. In a surprise act, the husband moved into another flat along with his twin daughters without informing the wife. The petitioner filed a police complaint and sought interim visitation rights for her daughters. The local court rejected her application in 2023, later the petitioner approached the High Court of Bombay.
The order said, "It is seen that the petitioner (wife) and Respondent No. 1 (husband) are recognised as the intending parents. At least to the naked eye, there is no ambiguity whatsoever while observing and even concluding that it is the petitioner along with Respondent No. 1 who signed the surrogacy agreement as intending parents," as per DC.
