Surrogacy: Boards and Appropriate Authorities

In one line

Two statutes, one Board, one Registry, and this is the Act that builds them.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the National Assisted Reproductive Technology and Surrogacy Board is constituted by section 17 of this Act, with its term, meetings, disqualifications and functions in sections 18 to 25; State Boards are constituted by section 26 with corresponding provisions in sections 27 to 34; the National Registry is established by section 15; and appropriate authorities are appointed under section 35 with functions in section 36 and powers in section 37. The Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act 2021 does not duplicate any of this: its sections 4 and 7 apply these provisions to its own Boards.

Why the two Acts share machinery

Assisted reproduction and surrogacy overlap almost entirely in practice. A gestational surrogacy requires an embryo created outside the body, so it is an assisted reproductive technology procedure as well as a surrogacy; the same clinics perform both; the same donors and the same laboratories are involved.

Parliament enacted the two statutes together and gave them a single Board and a single Registry rather than two of each. That is why:

• section 3 of the ART Act provides for the National Board and section 4 applies this Act's provisions to it;
• section 6 of the ART Act provides for the State Board and section 7 applies this Act's provisions to it; and
• section 9 of the ART Act and section 15 of this Act both establish the National Assisted Reproductive Technology and Surrogacy Registry, for the purposes of both statutes.

A candidate asked about the composition of the Board under the ART Act must therefore answer from this statute, and saying so is itself worth a mark.

Section 15 and 16: the Registry

Section 15 establishes the National Assisted Reproductive Technology and Surrogacy Registry for the purposes of this Act and the Assisted Reproductive Technology Act.

Section 16 applies the provisions of the Assisted Reproductive Technology Act with respect to the National Registry, so the Registry's composition and functions are found in sections 10 and 11 of that Act, worked in [ART: Authorities and the National Registry].

Note the symmetry. The Boards are built here and borrowed by the ART Act; the Registry is built there and borrowed here. Neither statute is complete on its own, which is the single most important structural fact about both.

Sections 17 to 25: the National Board

Section 17 constitutes the National Assisted Reproductive Technology and Surrogacy Board, and prescribes its composition, which includes the Minister in charge of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare as Chairperson, the Secretary to the Government of India in charge of the Department dealing with the Act as Vice-Chairperson, three women Members of Parliament, three members of the Ministries concerned, an eminent woman representing a women's organisation, an officer of the Indian Council of Medical Research, and eminent medical practitioners in the relevant specialities as expert members.