Chandigarh, Nov 5: In a detailed judgment regarding reproductive rights and statutory compliance under the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Act, 2021, the Punjab and Haryana High Court declared that female applicants below the age of 50 possess an independent right to avail IVF procedures.
The bench of Justice Tribhuvan Dahiya affirmed that both married and unmarried women fall within the scope of the Act’s provisions to access fertility treatments individually. The court stated that a female petitioner’s access to clinical services does not lapse merely because her spouse has crossed the maximum permissible limit of 55 years.
At the same time, the court upheld the strict enforceability of the statutory age cutoffs. In dismissing a plea to utilize previously preserved frozen embryos after the female petitioner crossed the age of 50, the court declared that frozen embryo storage prior to the cutoff age does not override the statutory bar once the maximum age limit is reached. The administration of treatment remains subject to existing legal and medical frameworks governing health safety standards.
