Surrogacy: Clinics, Registration and Procedure

In one line

A surrogacy leaves a child who will one day be an adult, and the Act keeps the paperwork for twenty-five years because of that.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: no surrogacy clinic may operate unless registered under sections 11 and 12, registration may be suspended or cancelled under section 13 with an appeal under section 14 available to the clinic and to the intending couple or woman, and every clinic must maintain records for twenty-five years under section 46, with a power of search and seizure in the appropriate authority under section 47.

Section 3: the prohibition on clinics

Section 3 prohibits and regulates surrogacy clinics from the commencement of the Act:

• no surrogacy clinic, laboratory or clinical establishment of any kind shall conduct, offer, undertake, promote or associate with or avail of surrogacy or its procedures unless registered under the Act;
• no surrogacy clinic shall employ or cause to be employed or take services of any person, whether on honorary basis or on payment, who does not possess the prescribed qualifications;
• no medical practitioner, gynaecologist, paediatrician, embryologist or any other person shall conduct, offer, undertake, promote or associate with surrogacy or its procedures at a place other than a place registered under the Act; and
• no surrogacy clinic, paediatrician, gynaecologist, embryologist or any person shall promote, publish, canvass, propagate or advertise, in any manner including by internet, anything that is intended to lead to surrogacy or its procedures otherwise than in accordance with the Act, or that relates to commercial surrogacy.

The advertising prohibition sits alongside section 22 of the PCPNDT Act and section 32 of the ART Act, and the reasoning is the same: a market advertised into existence produces the practice.

Sections 11 to 14: registration

Section 11(1): no person shall establish any surrogacy clinic for undertaking surrogacy or rendering surrogacy procedures in any form unless duly registered under the Act. Section 11(2): every application shall be made to the appropriate authority in the prescribed form and manner with the prescribed fee, and the section provides for the period within which existing clinics must apply.

Section 12(1): the appropriate authority shall, after holding an inquiry and after satisfying itself that the applicant has complied with all the requirements of the Act and the rules, grant a certificate of registration in the prescribed form and manner, subject to prescribed conditions. Section 12 further provides for the period of validity and for rejection after an opportunity of being heard, with reasons recorded in writing.

Section 13(1): the appropriate authority may, suo motu or on complaint, issue a show cause notice to a surrogacy clinic to show cause why its registration should not be suspended or cancelled, for the reasons mentioned. Section 13(2): if, after giving a reasonable opportunity of being heard, the authority is satisfied that there has been a breach of the Act or the rules, it may, without prejudice to any criminal action it may take, suspend the registration for such period as it thinks fit or cancel it. Section 13(3): notwithstanding those sub-sections, if the authority is of opinion that it is necessary or expedient in the public interest, it may, for reasons to be recorded in writing, suspend the registration without issuing a notice.