ART Act Is Regulatory, Not Meant To Create Insurmountable Barriers To Parenthood: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has observed that the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act, 2021, is fundamentally regulatory in character and is not meant to create insurmountable barriers defeating legitimate continuation of treatment processes already lawfully undertaken.“This Court is also conscious of the fact that reproductive rights and access to parenthood in the contemporary constitutional jurisprudence cannot be reduced to purely technical or pedantic application of statutory conditions divorced from factual context in which such rights are asserted,” Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav said. The Court said that a distinction must be drawn between the initiation of a fresh Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) cycle after crossing the statutory age threshold and the continuation of an already commenced treatment involving existing cryopreserved embryos.It added that where a treatment has already commenced which involves existing cryopreserved embryos, the same warrants a purposive interpretation consistent with constitutional protections available to reproductive choice and decisional autonomy. The Court made the observations while allowing a couple to undergo frozen embryo transfer (FET) using their remaining cryopreserved embryos, despite the woman having crossed the upper age limit prescribed under Section 21(g) of the ART Act after the treatment process had already begun.The Court noted that the couple was not seeking creation or extraction of fresh embryos after crossing the statutory age threshold. It said that their request was confined to utilisation of the very same embryos which had already been retrieved at a point when the woman undisputedly satisfied the statutory age requirement. “As on date, Petitioner No. 1 is stated to be 50 years 2 months of age where as Petitioner No. 2 is stated to be 54 years old. However, the embryos presently sought to be utilised are those which came to be created during subsistence of permissible statutory age and pursuant to a process initiated under medical supervision,” the Court noted.The judge said that the case concerned continuation of an already initiated reproductive process involving pre-existing cryopreserved embryos and not commencement of a fresh ART procedure dehors the statutory framework.“The cryopreserved embryos in question are not merely preserved biological material in abstract but are intrinsically connected with the Petitioners‟ reproductive autonomy, decisional privacy and their constitutional protected choice relating procreation and family life,” the Court held. It concluded that denial of permission to utilise the remaining five cryopreserved embryos solely on account of the couple having marginally crossed age threshold of the ART process would not subserve the object of the ART Act.“In view of the aforesaid, the petition stands allowed. The Petitioners are permitted to undergo frozen embryo transfer of their remaining five cryopreserved embryos, with all medical safeguards,” the Court concluded. Title: SHEWTA TUTEJA & ANR v. UNION OF INDIA & ORSCitation: 2026 LiveLaw (Del) 556Click here to read order

ART Act Is Regulatory, Not Meant To Create Insurmountable Barriers To Parenthood: Delhi High Court

Nupur Thapliyal

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Nupur Thapliyal

ART Act Is Regulatory, Not Meant To Create Insurmountable Barriers To Parenthood: Delhi High Court

Nupur Thapliyal

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