Chandigarh, Dec 22: Clarifying the scope of age restrictions under the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act, 2021, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that fertility clinics cannot refuse ART treatment to a couple merely because one partner has crossed the prescribed age limit.
Justice Suvir Sehgal, delivering the order, said the law draws a clear distinction between individuals and couples and fixes age eligibility only for individuals based on gender.
“The age restriction has been placed on individual gender. There is no age restriction for a couple,” the court observed while allowing a petition filed by an infertile married couple.
The couple, married for over two decades, had approached an IVF centre in Jalandhar after consulting doctors in India and abroad. The centre declined treatment on the ground that the husband had crossed 55 years, the maximum age limit for men under the Act.
The IVF centre, supported by the Union government, argued that the couple was ineligible as they did not meet the twin age conditions prescribed under Section 21(g) of the law. Government counsel cited discussions held by the Standing Parliamentary Committee on Health and Family Welfare and meetings of the national board, where age restrictions were deliberated in the context of child welfare.
The court, however, said the statute does not support a joint interpretation of age limits. Referring to Section 2(1)(n) of the Act, the court said the term “patients” includes both an individual and a couple, recognizing them as distinct categories.
“The combined age of the commissioning couple has not been laid down under the statute,” the court said.
Since the woman was below 50 years of age and met all eligibility requirements, the court ruled that ART services could not be denied to the couple on the sole ground that the husband had crossed the age threshold.
The court directed the fertility centre to allow the petitioners to avail ART services in accordance with law.
