An elderly couple from Kalburgi in Karnataka has approached the Bombay high court (HC) seeking direction to an in vitro fertilisation (IVF) centre at Solapur to proceed with the surrogacy procedure that was initiated by their now-deceased son so that they can get an inheritor to their estate.

The 70-year-old retired principal of a government pre-university college in Karnataka and his 65-year-old wife have complained that the Navjeevan Fertility and IVF Centre has expressed its inability to continue with the surrogacy procedure. The centre pointed out that the petitioners’ daughter-in-law, the widow of their deceased son, had withdrawn consent for the procedure.

According to their petition, filed through advocate Tejas Dande, the couple’s only son got married in November 2014 but did not have any children. As such, they were told to visit the in-vitro fertilisation centre at Solapur where their son and daughter-in-law were advised to go for an IVF procedure and were also given an option of surrogacy.

The petition added that the young couple opted for surrogacy, as both the sisters of the deceased were willing to lend their womb for their brother’s child. The IVF centre then started the procedure for surrogacy and collected sperm and eggs from the couple for Caro embryo transfer - a process of assisted reproduction in which the embryo is placed into the uterus of the surrogate mother who carries the pregnancy to its full term, and delivers the child.

The IVF centre succeeded in creating an embryo but before it could be placed in the uterus of one of the surrogates, the petitioners’ son died on October 2, 2017.

The couple said the IVF centre stopped the surrogacy procedure after their daughter-in-law revoked her consent following her husband’s death. They claimed, in their petition, that the IVF centre orally told them that though an embryo has a shelf life of 60 months, and in this case, the embryo can be used till 2021, they could not proceed with implantation, in view of the death of their son and withdrawal of consent by their daughter-in-law.

The elderly couple has said that they fully understand that their 27-year-old daughter-in-law has every right to remarry and that they don’t expect her to live the life of a widow. They have assured the court that they will take appropriate care of the child and will not let it affect the life of their daughter-in-law. The petition is scheduled to come up for hearing on March 14.

First Published: Mar 10, 2019 23:24 IST