Kerala High Court Rejects Plea Seeking Relaxation of Surrogacy Age Limit

Kochi: The Kerala High Court has dismissed a petition seeking relaxation of the upper age limit prescribed under the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, ruling that courts cannot grant exemptions beyond the limits fixed by law.

Justice M B Snehalatha observed that the age criteria specified under the legislation were scientifically determined, taking into account the health and welfare of both the mother and the child to be born.

The petition was filed by a couple from Chettikulangara — a 44-year-old woman and her 57-year-old husband — who had approached the court after being denied permission to proceed with surrogacy treatment.

The couple argued that their embryos had been cryopreserved in a hospital before the husband crossed the permissible age limit. They contended that permission should not be denied solely on the basis of age at a later stage.

However, the court pointed out that under the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, the maximum permissible age is 56 years for men and 50 years for women. It further clarified that the limited relaxation permitted under an earlier Supreme Court order applies only to cases where the surrogacy process had commenced before the law came into force in 2022.

Since the embryos in the present case were frozen only in 2023, the couple was not eligible for that exemption, the court held while rejecting the plea.