A Sudan National, Shihabeldin, has moved the Punjab and Haryana high court challenging the International Surrogacy Visa Regulation of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) which restricts international surrogacy arrangements to married couple (married at least for a period of two years) and bars international surrogacy for single foreign nationals and unmarried couples. The regulation also requires the letter from the country of origin stating that international surrogacy is recognised by their country and that the child born through the surrogacy arrangement would be allowed into their country.

Admitting the application, a division bench headed by Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul of the Punjab and Haryana high court issued notice to the Ministry of Home Affairs instructing the ministry to file a response to the application. According to the application, the Sudan National is being aggrieved by the fact that he could not take up surrogacy in India as a single parent.

The brief facts as reported are that the Petitioner is a resident of Sudan and desired to become a single parent through surrogacy in India and had contacted a medical facility in India. It was then it came to his knowledge that the MHA had issued a regulation restricting single parents from taking up surrogacy in India. Aggrieved by the same, he had file the present application.

It is reportedly argued that ICMR guidelines has been placed reliance upon to support the contention that single parent may take up surrogacy in India and the new visa regulation in place is contradicting the same. Further, it was reportedly argued that the foreign nationals couldn’t be discriminated by restricting them from taking up surrogacy in India.

It could be recollected at this juncture that the Supreme Court had in the year 2008 decided the case of Baby Manji vs. Union of India, wherein the grandmother of the child was given clear passage to take the child back to Japan. In 2009, arose another interesting case of Jan Balaz, wherein the Supreme Court of India facilitated the movement of the twin children to Germany, even though Germany vehemently tried stalling the same.

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