Mumbai: Bombay high court on Wednesday granted interim relief to two women aged above 50, allowing them to go ahead with requisite tests necessary to verify fitness before proceeding with an assisted reproductive techniques (ART) procedure to conceive by accepting donor gametes.The HC last month appointed former Maharashtra advocate general Ashutosh Kumbhakoni as amicus curiae (friend of court) to assist on legal aspects of the issue raised by the women aged 53 and 55, both married, who questioned the 50-year upper age limit set under the law for women and 55 for men, to get reproductive healthcare for ART to conceive a child.On Wednesday, the HC division bench of Justices Ravindra Ghuge and Abhay Mantri heard the matter at length and submissions made by Kumbhakoni before passing the interim order.The Act was challenged on the ground that the upper age limit, of 50 for women and 55 for men as stipulated in the Act, is arbitrary and unconstitutional.The married women who are over the stipulated age limit have challenged Section 21(g) of the Assisted Reproductive Technology Act, 2021, seeking a declaration that it is unconstitutional and sought it be struck down. The assistance bar is on receiving gametes—eggs and sperm cells—too.The petitioners through their lawyer Kalyani Tulankar argued the provisions of the Act providing access to ART services up to a maximum of 55 years for man, and up to 50 years to a woman, who is to accept the sperm contributed and nurture the foetus in her womb, were violative of their fundamental rights and discriminatory.The HC in March, after noting the absence of analytical research-based data in the petition, appointed the former AG to assist on the law. The women wanted the HC to grant them permission as interim relief to undergo treatment through ART to conceive a child through sperm donation.The HC wanted research-backed material to show a woman can be medically fit and competent to bear a pregnancy at their age.Both claimed to have been issued medical certificates by a gynaecologist stating that they are fit and capable of carrying a pregnancy to full term and delivering a child.
